r v-v 






| LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.! 



J^e^ -N6 



{UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, i 



THE 

PLENARY INSPIRATION 

OF 

THE SCRIPTURES 

ASSERTED. 



Translation of the Motto. 

" Celsus [who may be regarded as the representative of the Modern Infidels] 
says, — ' If they [the Christians] think proper to answer me, not as an inquirer, 
for I know all, but as one who is as well skilled in every thing as them- 
selves ; it is very well.' In Egypt [says Origen] the wise men philosophize 
largely, according to the learning of the country, upon the subjects regarded 
among them as divine, whilst the common people, if they only catch hold of 
some of their mystical relations without knowing any thing of their meaning, 
think themselves very wise : Celsus then here appears to me to behave like a 
person who should take a journey to that country, and who should boast on his 
return that he knew all the wisdom of the Egyptians, because he had learned 
what these ignorant people could teach him; though he had never been in com- 
pany with one of the priests, nor been admitted by any of them to a knowledge 
of the hidden meaning of the Egyptian arcana." 

Origen 's Answer to Celsus, p. 11, Ed. Spencer. 



Origen, a celebrated Christian writer, and advocate for the spiritual sense of 
the Scriptures, was born in 185, and died in 254. Celsus was a heathen phi- 
losopher, who wrote the first regular attempted refutation of Christianity, 
about the year 130. 




/.Jr*fa, 



M m ENAMEL BY W. ESSEX ESQ?. 
AFTER THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY J. CLOVER ESU? 



ft. 

THE 

PLENARY INSPIRATION 

OF 

THE SCRIPTURES 

ASSERTED, 

AND 

THE PRINCIPLES OF THEIR COMPOSITION 

INVESTIGATED 
WITH A VIEW TO THE 

REFUTATION OF ALL OBJECTIONS 
TO THEIR DIYINITY. 

Jn &ix Hectares. 

WITH AN APPENDIX, ILLUSTRATIVE AND CRITICAL, 

BY THE REV. s/ NOBLE. 



$r)aiv o KeXcros, — " Et fxev 877 ^eXrjaovaiv airoKpivea&ai jjloi us ov Siairei- 
pwfieva), iravTa yap oida, aAA' tas e| taov iravrwv K7)Sojj.€U(o ev av ex 01 " — 
AoKii 8e fioL TOiovrov Tt 7re7rot77K:ei/cu, as a tis tt) Aiyvirra €Tridr]fxr)(ras, ev&a 01 
p.eu A&vtttiwv <ro<poi, Kara ra irarpia ypafifxara, xoAAa (pi\oao(povcri irepi tu>v 
irap' tidTots vevofMio-fievccv Seiaiv, 01 8e iSiWTOt fxuSovs rivas aKovaavTes wv rovs 
Koyovs ovk e-n-HTTavrai, pay a eir' avrois (ppovovcriv coero iraura ra AtyvTrriwp eyvw- 
Kevat, tois idiwTais avrcov pabriTevcras, Kat firjdevi to>v tepeoov avp-fxi^as, jiajS' 
airo rivos avrwv ra Aiyvirriuv airoppfira [xa&wv. Orig. cont. Cels. L. i. 



V ^ } 



THIRD EDITION. 



18C7 J 



LONDON: 

HODSON & SON, 22, PORTUGAL STEEET, 
LINCOLN'S INN. 

1859. 



PREFACE. 



So numerous are the works which have been produced in vindication 
of the divine authority of the Scriptures and of the truth of the 
Christian Religion, so high the reputation of many of them, and so 
unquestionably great their merit, that it might almost appear like 
presumption in any one again to handle this argument. Certainly, 
however, while fresh attacks upon the foundations of the Christian 
Religion are continually being made, it is necessary that fresh works 
should be composed in its defence ; even though they added no more 
that is new to the vindication of Revelation, than the renewed ranks 
of its assailants produce against it. 

But laudable and useful as the production of works of this class is, 
he who now solicits the attention of the Public would never have ap- 
peared as an Author, merely to add to their number. He has long 
been impressed with a serious conviction, that fully to meet the diffi- 
culties which infidel writers have raised, it were necessary to put the 
controversy on a different ground from that which has been taken by 
the most popular of the Christian advocates. He is of opinion, that 
the ablest of their works are more adapted to silence, than to satisfy, 
even an ingenuous inquirer. The former effect is or ought to be pro- 
duced, when such circumstances and considerations are alleged as 
cannot be accounted for upon any other hypothesis than that which 
supposes the truth of the religion : but to accomplish the latter object, 
the circumstances in the documents of the religion, which, as the 
Sceptic thinks, are incompatible with the belief of their divine origin, 
must, also, be satisfactorily explained. This is what few of the modern 
advocates of Revelation attempt ; and they who have attempted it 
have seldom satisfied even their own friends: indeed it is now usual 
to admit, that some of the difficulties are such, as, in the present state 
of knowledge upon the subject, or by any principles which have yet 
been applied to it, are inexplicable. With this drawback, the success 
with which they have handled the other part of the argument too 
often fails to produce any deep conviction ; notwithstanding they have 
proved, with a completeness which leaves little room for fair denial, 
that Christianity, in general, may, — nay, must be true, whether all the 
seeming difficulties in its records can be explained or not. 

The perpetual theme of modern defenders of Christianity, is, Mi- 
racles ; which, they shew, were certainly performed by Jesus Christ 



VI PREFACE. 

and the apostles, and which they extol as the proper evidences of a 
Divine Revelation. So far as relates to the latter assertion, the Deist 
is ready enough to take them at their word : he admits that miracles 
are proper evidences, and desires, therefore, to see some performed. 
With the express terms of this request, the Christian advocate declines 
to comply ; but he undertakes to prove, instead of it, that the sceptics 
of former ages might, if they pleased, have had that satisfaction. 

But do not both parties here somewhat mistake the matter ? If 
the evidence of miracles were so convincing as the Deistical writers 
usually suppose, how come some of their acutest reasoners to object 
to Christianity on that very ground, — because it records them among 
its documents ? If, on the other hand, that evidence were so essential 
as the Christian advocates admit, how can we account for their having 
ceased ; and ceased, not only in countries where the profession of 
Christianity is established, but even where attempts are made to sow 
in new soils the seed of the gospel? Ought not this palpable fact to 
make the Christian hesitate about affirming so confidently, that 
miracles are so highly important as evidences of the truth of Re- 
velation ? Ought it not to lead us to conclude, that, either separate 
from, or in addition to, this use of miracles, some other cause was re- 
quired to their exhibition ; and that, this ceasing to operate, they 
ceased also ? Thus may we not infer, that they were performed under 
the Jewish dispensation, because they were suited to the nature of 
that dispensation, and to the Jewish character ; that they were per- 
formed also at the commencement of Christianity, on account of its 
original connexion with Judaism ; because, likewise, the Jewish dis- 
pensation was not finally terminated till the destruction of Jerusalem, 
which put a total end to the types and shadows of the ceremonial law; 
and because, in general, they were suited to the state of the human 
mind at that time ? but that the cause of their entirely ceasing soon 
afterwards* was, because they were not suited to the nature of the 
Christian dispensation, nor to the state of the human mind which was 
introduced with, or produced by, that dispensation ? It is certain 
that, with the introduction of Christianity, the human mind received 
a capacity of being enlightened by the substance of those things of 
which the Jewish law, with the miracles wrought to confirm it, and 
those also wrought among the Jews by the Founder of Christianity, 

* What was the exact period of their cessation,— whether, with some, we suppose the 
power of performing them to have died with the Apostles ; or, with others, to have con- 
tinued for one, two, or three centuries afterwards : or even, with the Roman Catholics, to 
exist still; is of little consequence; since few will contend that, after the Apostles, it was 
constantly enjoyed by the teachers of Christianity, or was so exercised as to add much 
effect to their preaching. The phenomena which may have sometimes attended private 
acts of faith, or, as most will prefer to say, (in regard, at least, to modern cases,) of imagin- 
ation, belong to a different order. 



PREFACE. Vll 

were types : and this new state of the mind required evidences more 
congenial to its own nature. 

Now this view of the subject does more for the support of Chris- 
tianity, by nullifying the demand of the Deist for present miracles, 
than would be effected in its behalf by miracles themselves, could they 
still be produced. For certain it is that miracles would net have that 
convincing effect which both parties ascribe to them. Accordingly ? 
when they were wrought by the first teachers of Christianity, the con- 
version of opposers does not appear to have been their chief intention : 
on the contrary, where opposition prevailed, it is said of the Saviour 
himself, that he could not do many mighty works, because of their 
unbelief*; and never did he perform one when defied to it. Still, 
because no one, in those days, doubted the possibility of such per- 
formances, the fame of them spread abroad. But we well know what 
excuses the Jews readily framed, for refusing to believe the Revelation 
thus authenticated to them : and are we sure that even all of those, 
who now are loudest in condemning the folly, in this respect, of the 
Jews, and who take most pains to prove the infallibility of miracles as 
evidences to a Divine Revelation, would accept any doctrine which 
they now reject as contrary to their reason, could its advocates work 
a miracle for their satisfaction ? Would they not presently evince as 
much ingenuity as the Jews, in evading the force of the miraculous 
proof, and justifying their adherence to their former opinion ? We 
may infer the result from the example of a celebrated controversialist, 
and a strenuous advocate for the efficacy of miraculous proof; who 
yet scrupled not to affirm in one of his publications, that were an 
angel from heaven to announce to him a certain doctrine, which many 
think they plainly read in the Scriptures, he would tell him in reply, 
that he was a lying spirit : If then a celestial visitor would have been 
so rudely treated by this mighty polemic, who also was an eminent 
philosopher, what would be the fate of a human teacher of any 
obnoxious doctrine who should pretend to confirm it by miracles? 
Would he not be reviled as a juggler and a cheat? would not the 
philosophic science of his antagonists be put in requisition to devise for 
the phenomena some plausible solution from natural causes? and 
would not some secret method of putting these causes into action be 
the utmost that would be allowed to the operator? The only difference 
between the philosophic and the Jewish opponent would be this ; that 
while the one allowed a positive miracle to have been wrought, but 
assigned the cause of it to Satanic energy, the other would deny any 
miracle at all, and would ascribe the whole to the energies of Nature. 

Let us suppose, hewever, the Deist to be somewhat more candid, 
and to be capable of being satisfied, at the time, that a miracle had 

* Yi&rk vi. 5 ; Matt. xiii. 58. 



Y1I1 PREFACE. 

been performed : Imagine him then to appeal to a modern inheritor of 
the Apostolic gifts, (if any such existed,) enumerating the difficulties 
with which, to him, the documents of Revelation seem to be attended, 
affirming that certain statements in the Sacred Records appear to him 
repugnant to reason and replete with contradictions, and begging to 
be informed how the difficulties may be reconciled, and the record 
containing them viewed as altogether worthy of a divine origin : And 
suppose the Christian teacher to answer, " I will presently convince 
you that the Record is from God ; but as for the difficulties in it, you 
must reconcile them yourself in the best manner you can ;" and were 
immediately to perform some notable miracle : How would the Deist 
be affected by it ? Would the wonder displayed before his eyes re- 
move all darkness from his mind? When thus certified that the 
Revelation came from God, would he understand it any better ? If 
he before thought it unworthy of God, would he now see the ground 
of his error? If it before appeared to him to include contradictions, 
would these immediately vanish ? In short, though silenced, would 
he be satisfied ? 

Now this appears nearly to resemble the situation, in which the 
inquirer, whose attention has been directed to the difficulties which 
have been raised by Infidel Objectors, is placed by the defences of 
Christianity most in esteem, when they insist so much upon the 
miracles wrought at its origin. A compulsory conviction (, com- 
pulsory as far as it goes,) is produced, that the religion thus evidenced 
must be true : but the question as to how it can be true, is left just 
where it was before : and yet till this also be seen ; till the question 
of reason be as satisfactorily answered as the question of fact ; no con- 
viction can penetrate very deep. The miracles wrought by the first 
promulgators of Christianity, are certainly brought again, by the 
labours of modern advocates, almost before our senses ; but, happily, 
not quite : for if they were, the effect would be, to deprive the mind of 
that superior freedom which Christianity, among its other benefits* 
was introduced to restore, and not to open the understanding, but to 
close it. A sceptic thus convinced that the Scriptures have the 
sanction of divine authority, would be placed in the situation of an 
Englishman and a Protestant in such a country as Spain: in his heart 
he might think the government a tyranny and the religion priestcraft; 
but being quite satisfied of their power, the fear of the Inquisition 
might compel him to hold his tongue. It is not congenial to the 
nature of the human mind to acquiesce in implicit faith contrary to 
the dictates of its own understanding : and if this is not congenial to 
the nature of the human mind in general, assuredly it is peculiarly 
repugnant to it at the present day, when so astonishing a spirit of 
inquiry has so universally gone abroad. The sceptic will now ask, 



PREFACE. IX 

" While the phenomena of nature are in every direction becoming 
intelligible, and we are admitted to see the rationale — the philosophy, 
of every other science, is Theology for ever to present nothing but 
dogmas, for which faith is demanded while understanding is denied ? 
"Will she, alone, never answer the request for her reasons, but by 
alleging her miracles ?" 

Let not, however, these remarks be misunderstood. Nothing is 
further from the intention of the writer, than to depreciate the merit, 
or undervalue the utility, of the vindications of Revelation here 
alluded to : all that is meant to be insinuated is, that they require 
something in addition to render them fully efficient to their object. 
If, while the Deist is convinced by them that miracles were actually 
wrought at the commencement of Christianity, and that Revealed 
Religion had a divine origin, he is induced, in consequence, to suspect 
that the circumstances in its documents which he regards as revolting 
to reason only appear so because they are not understood : the convic- 
tion wrought in him may be lasting, and may finally be exalted into 
an enlightened faith. But to secure this result, it surely is necessary 
to lead him, as well as to drive him; — to resolve his doubts and 
remove his difficulties, as well as to assure him, that the religion is 
true in spite of them all. 

It has long, then, been the conviction of the writer of these pages, 
that such a view of the Volume of Revelation might be presented, as 
should be adequate to this object: but he little thought that ever he 
should venture to attempt it himself. The present work is entirely 
the product of circumstances, and its publication is what they who do 
not -acknowledge a Providence in every thing, would call purely 
accidental. 

The public mind having for some time past had the question 
respecting the divinity of the Christian Oracles thrust before it in 
every possible shape, it occurred to the Author, during the last 
winter, that some benefit might be communicated, at least to a few, 
by the delivery of some Lectures, in a public Lecture-room, upon the 
subject. The thought and its execution were equally sudden; so 
much so, that the chief part of each Lecture was composed, amid other 
engagements, and, at first, without the most remote view to any other 
mode of publication, in the week which preceded its delivery. The 
approbation with which the effort was received, by a numerous and 
respectable auditory, far exceeded the Author's most sanguine expec- 
tations. From the commencement, urgent solicitations were made to 
him to allow the Lectures to be printed ; and when, towards the con- 
clusion, he announced his determination to comply with the request, 
it was received with the strongest expressions of satisfaction. This 
statement is made simply from a sentiment of gratitude, and to 



X PREFACE. 

account for the appearance and form of the work ; but without any 
idea on the part of the Author, that the decision of his auditory will in 
the slightest degree influence, or even that it can afford any means for 
anticipating, the decision of the public at large, before whose tribunal 
he has thus been encouraged to venture. It is also necessary to state, 
further, that when he consented to publish the Lectures, he really was 
not aware of what he had undertaken. So hastily had they been pre - 
pared, that, when he had finished reading them, he hardly knew of 
what they consisted. He was well apprised that much revision would 
be necessary, and that many important things had been cursorily 
passed over, which must be more distinctly treated : but he fully ex- 
pected that the whole would have been comprised in less than three 
hundred pages. The work was put immediately to the press, and the 
first Lecture was printed without any very considerable alterations 
from the original copy : the five others, however, have been enlarged, 
upon an average, to three times their original extent ; and a copious 
Appendix has also been added.* Altogether, the book has assumed 
dimensions much beyond what was wished ; but for this it is hoped, 
the importance of the subject will be a sufficient apology. As neither 
the whole of the work, nor any large portion of it, was ever under the 
Author's eye together, till it was irrevocably fixed in print, he is aware 
that it may afford abundant occasion for the severity of criticism : he 
would wish therefore that it might be judged by its matter and design, 
rather than its manner and execution. If the former merit condem- 
nation, let condemnation be awarded ; but for the latter he craves 
some indulgence. The mode of its origin necessarily threw the work 
into a popular form, which it still retains, especially in the first 
Lecture : but the Author has endeavoured to render it not unworthy 
the attention of the lover of studious inquiry and of biblical literature, 
while he has mainly endeavoured to assist the pursuit of the earnest 
investigator of revealed truth. The question respecting the divinity 
of the professed Oracles of Revelation, is equally momentous to the 
simple and to the sage ; and this, he hopes, will be accepted as an 
apology by the learned, for his having treated it in a concio ad 
populum. 

* To the last Article of the Appendix,— the Remerks upon the late excellent Bampton 
Lectures by the late Rev. Mr. Conybeare, — no reference occurs in the Work itself, the 
Author not having read them till that part of his Work was printed in which the notice of 
them would properly have come : he takes the opportunity, therefore, of making the 
reference here. 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE I.— Page 1 to 25. 

INTRODUCTORY. INFIDEL OBJECTIONS STATED. 

Prevalence of Infidel sentiments, and of an increasing tendency to think 
meanly of the Scriptures. Their Plenary Inspiration generally relinquished. 
Design of these Lectures stated. I. Necessity of Revelation. II. The cha- 
racter which must belong to a Composition which has God for its Author. 
Inquiry proposed : Do the books called the Holy Scriptures come up to this 
character ? Answered in the affirmative by the Lecturer, but the Proof re- 
served for the subsequent Lectures. Answered in the negative by the Deist, 
on the alleged grounds, that the books in question contain some Statements 
which are contradictory to each other, some that are at variance with 
Science and Reason, and some which are repugnant to Morality ; and that, 
beside these positive Objections, the greater part of them is occupied with 
Indifferent and Insignificant Matters. Examples. General Reply: That 
all such Objections arise from taking a merely Superficial View of the Scrip- 
tures, and from an Ignorance of their True Nature ; and that they may be 
retorted, so as to assist in proving what the True Nature of the Scriptures 
is. III. Appeal to the Reader, on the ill consequences of Infidelity. 

LECTURE II.— Page 26 to 67. 

THE TRUE NATURE OF THE SCRIPTURES EXPLAINED. 

Design with which the Scriptures were given, and the Nature of their Com- 
position, stated for proof. I. That the title, " the Word of God," and the 
Plenary Inspiration which that title implies, are claimed by the Scriptures. 
1. By Moses and the Prophets for their respective Writings. 2. The claim 
allowed them, and their absolute Infallibility asserted, by the Lord Jesus 
Christ. 3. Their Plenary Inspiration insisted on by the Apostles. 4. And 
recognised, till lately, by the majority of Biblical Critics. II. Proofs, from 
rational and philosophical grounds, that a Composition which is really "the 
Word of God," must contain stores of wisdom in its bosom independently 
of any thing that appears on the surface. III. That the Composition re- 
ceived as the Word of God, continually assures us that it is inwardly 
replenished with such wisdom. 1. This intimated by the writers of the Old 
Testament : 2. Expressly declared by the Lord Jesus Christ ; 3. And by 
his Apostles : 4. Generally believed by the Christian Church, (1.) for many 
ages, from the Apostles downwards, (2.) and still recognised by the best In- 
terpreters. IV. But this great truth having been abused, that endeavours 



Xll CONTENTS. 

have been made, during the last two or three Centuries, to restrict the 
meaning of the Scriptures to their Literal Sense alone. Admitted, that all 
Controversies are to be decided, and Points of Faith established, by the 
Literal Sense : But that the objection against a further sense would fall to 
the ground, could it be shewn, that the Scriptures are written throughout 
according to an immutable Law or Rule, a knowledge of which would, in 
explaining them, substitute certainty for conjecture, and cut off the sources 
of vague interpretation. 

LECTURE III.— Page 68 to 123. 

THE LAW OR RULE EXPLAINED ACCORDING TO WHICH THE SCRIPTURES 
ARE WRITTEN. 

Preliminary Remark, on the Reasons why the Scriptures are not written in 
plainer Language. Short Recapitulation. I. A Universal Rule of Interpre- 
tation afforded in the Mutual Relation, which exists by creation, between 
things Natural or Material, Spiritual or Moral, and Divine. II. The 
Nature of this Relation considered. 1. The whole Universe an Outbirth 
from the Deity, whence it bears, in all its parts, an immutable relation to 
the attributes which belong to the Divine Essence. 2. That on all things 
belonging to the Moral, Intellectual, and Spiritual Worlds, the Divine 
Creator has thus first stamped a certain Image of himself. 3. And that he 
has done the same, though under a totally different form, on all the objects 
of Outward and Material Nature : (1.) In the chief organs and parts of the 
Human Frame, and in the arrangement of Pairs observable through all 
Nature : (2.) In the imitation of the Human Form which reigns throughout 
the Animal Kingdom, and, by Analogous Parts and Functions, in the Vege- 
table and Mineral Kingdoms also : (3.) In what may be called the Moral 
Qualities of Animals : (4.) Digression on the origin of Malignant Qualities 
in Animals and the other productions of Nature. (5.) The subject resumed, 
and instanced in the Essential Properties of Vegetables and Minerals. 
4. Thus that all things in Nature, being Outward Productions from Inward 
Essences, are Natural, Sensible, and Material Types of Moral, Intellectual, 
and Spiritual Antitypes, and, finally, of their Prototypes in God. III. That, 
weie the Relation between these different orders of Existences fully under- 
stood, a Style of Writing might be constructed, in which, while none but 
Natural Images were used, purely Intellectual Ideas should be most fully 
expressed. — 1. That this is in a great measure intuitively perceived by all 
Mankind. (1.) Hence our conclusions from the Expression of the Counte- 
nance to the Emotions of the Mind. (2 ) And hence the origin of many 
Forms of Speech in common use. (3.) If such a relation of Analogy 
between Moral or Spiritual and Material or Natural Objects exists in a great 
number of cases, it must be universal. 2. Palpable Instances of the occur- 
rence of such Forms of Speech in the Holy Word. IV. That in ancient 
times this constant Relation between things Natural, Moral or Spiritual, and 
Divine, was extensively understood. 1. Proved from intimations in the 
Historical Parts of Scripture. 2. Confirmatory remarks, drawn from the 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

Mythological Fables of the Greeks and Asiatics, and the Hieroglyphics oi 
Egypt? some of which are explained. V. That in this Relation, then, is to 
be found the Law or Rule according to which the Scriptures are written, and 
that a knowledge of it will afford the Key by which their " dark sayings" 
must be deciphered. — Conclusion: That the Doctrine of Analogies is not 
liable to the reproach either of Fancifulness or of Novelty, and is worthy the 
attention of every friend of Revelation and Piety, and of Reason and 
Knowledge. 

LECTURE IV.— Page 124 to 213. 

PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS, EVINCING THAT THE SCRIPTURES ARE WRITTEN 
ACCORDING TO THE LAW OR RULE DEVELOPED TN THE LAST LECTURE. 

I. Of the Style proper to a Divine Composition. Such a Style afforded by 
the Relation of Analogy between Natural Things and Spiritual, as explained 
in the last Lecture. II. That if the Scriptures are written by a Plenary 
Divine Inspiration, they must be composed in this Style. 1. The Word of 
God must be governed by the same General Law as his Works ; and this is 
the Law of the above Analogy. (1.) That when the Divine Speech, or the 
Divine Word, which is the same thing as the Divine Truth, emanates from 
the bosom of Deity into the circumference of Creation, or into the world of 
Nature, it there clothes itself with Images taken from that world, and that 
it cannot otherwise be presented to Mankind : (2.) But it thus is presented 
with a fulness which no other kind of Language coald afford : 2. Variety of 
Phraseology in the different Inspired Penmen, not inconsistent with Verbal 
Inspiration. 3. The difference between Plenary and Personal Inspiration; 
and that the former is necessarily occasional, and not permanently attendant 
on certain Persons. III. That the Holy Scriptures are the Divine Truth 
thus brought into a natural form ; and that therefore their Interior Meaning 
can only be understood by an application to them of the Law which governs 
the Relation between Natural Objects and Spiritual and Divine Essences. 
IV. Applicability of the Rule to the Prophecies of the Divine Word. The 
View proposed supplies exactly what, in other Systems, was felt to be 
wanting. 1. Sentiments of Biblical Critics on the Double Sense of Pro- 
phecy. Necessity of making the System uniform. 2. Rule of Analogical 
Interpretation adopted by Sir Isaac Newton and Bishop Warburton. 
3. Defects of their Rule, and the necessity of extending it further. V. Ex- 
amples of the Light which results from the application of the Rule of 
Analogy between Natural Things and Spiritual to the Prophecies. 1. Eze- 
kiel's Prophecy of a great Sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel. (Ezek 
xxxix. 17 to 20.) (1.) General Remarks on the Cass of Prophecies which 
can be intended for Spiritual Fulfilment only. (2.) Evidence that this 
Prediction belongs to that Class. (3.) General Signification of Judsea and 
the surrounding Countries. (4.) The Spiritual Analogy of the relations of 
Place deduced. (5.) The Signification of the Land of Gog and Magog as 
resulting from this Analogy, and of an Invasion thence of the Land of 
Juda;a. (6.) The light thrown by this Prophecy upon that portion of the 



XIV CONTEXTS. 

Prophetic Word which treats in its Letter of particular Countries and 
Nations. (7.) The Import, in the Language of Analogy, of the Address 
to the Fowls and Beasts. 2. The Lord's Prophecy of his Second Coming in 
the Clouds of heaven, (Matt. xxiv. 29, 30.) (1.) The former part of this 
Chapter a remarkable instance of that Class of Prophecies which admits a 
Literal Fulfilment: yet the Spiritual Fulfilment the principal thing in- 
tended. (2.) The impossibility of connecting the former part of the Pro- 
phecy with the latter by the Literal Sense alone, and the Inconsistencies 
incurred by Commentators in the attempt. (3.) Inquiry instituted into the 
specific Signification of the Coming of the Son of man in the Clouds. 
(4.) The terms must have a determinate meaning. (5.) The Import of the 
phrase, "Son of man," as used in Scripture. (6.) The Ground of that 
Import in Analogy. (7.) Signification of the Clouds, when mentioned in 
Scripture ; with the Analogical Reason for it. (8.) The meaning of the 
Prophecy thus rendered evident. 3. John's Vision of Spiritual Babylon, 
(Eev. xvii. 3 to 6.) (1.) Signification of Babylon in Scripture, as dis- 
coverable from the circumstances predicated respecting it : (2.) Of the cir- 
cumstances predicated by Babylon personified. — Conclusion : That the Pro- 
phetic Parts of Scripture are composed in the Divine Style of Writing, and 
that, thus far, the claims of the Scriptures to Plenary Divine Inspiration 
are established. 

LECTURE V.— Page 214 to 305. 

PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS CONTINUED 

The Argument, respecting the proof of the Plenary Inspiration of the Scrip- 
tures by their Style, more distinctly stated. I. Applicability of the Law 
which governs the Relation between Natural Objects and Spiritual and 
Divine Essences, or of the Science of Analogies, as a Rule for the Interpre- 
tation of the Historical Parts of the Divine Word. 1. Sentiments of Bib- 
lical Critics, and admissions of Expositors, on the Typical Nature of the 
Scripture History : (1.) In regard to the Miracles; (2.) And other Circum- 
stances. 2. Necessity of making the System uniform. II. Just Ideas of 
the nature and uses of the Israelitish Dispensation necessary to the right 
apprehension of the Israelitish History. 1. The selection of the Israelites as 
a peculiar people, not intended so much for their own benefit as for the 
general benefit of mankind. 2. It promoted this object; (1.) By their 
filling a station indispensable in the Divine Economy, during a period in 
which a higher or more extensive Dispensation could not have been received, 
and in supplying the Preparation without which such superior Dispensation 
could never be given at all : (2.) By furnishing the means by which the 
Holy Word might be written : which they did by representing divine things 
under External Symbols and Natural Occurrences ; for which office they 
were peculiarly suited by their distinguishing Temper and Genius. III. Ex- 
amples of the Light which results from the application' of the Rule of 
Analogy between Natural things and Spiritual to the Scripture Histories. 
1. The Miraculous Capture of Jericho : (Josh, vi.) (1.) The Acts of Vio- 



CONTENTS. XV 

lence performed by the Israelites, and some of the Enactments of the Law, 
merely permitted to them " because of the hardness of their hearts," and 
because they could be so overruled as to afford exact Symbolic Represen- 
tations of the Spiritual and Heavenly things which are the real objects of all 
the Divine Commandments. (2.) The Spiritual Import of the Command to 
destroy the Canaanites; (3.) of the circumstances attending the Capture of 
Jericho. 2. Jephthah and his vow : (Judges xi.) Remarks on the literal 
history. (1.) Necessity for an appearance, on the face of the Narrative, as 
if the Sacrifice took place. (2.) The Origin of Human Sacrifices : (3.) And 
of Sacrificial Worship in general ; with its Ground in, and Signification by, 
the Science of Analogies. (4.) The Signification of an apparent, and of the 
actual Sacrifice of a Child. (5.) The principles applied to the case of 
Jephthah's Vow, and shewn to explain, most satisfactorily, the statements 
of the Narrative. 3. The combat of David and Goliath, (1 Sam. xvii.) 
4. The circumstances attending the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. IV. Ex- 
amples of the Light which results from the application of the Rule to the 
Ceremonial Precepts of the Divine Word. 1. The Sacrifices in general : 
2. The Prohibition of various kinds of meats : (Lev. xi.) 3. The Law of 
the Nazarite : (Numb, vi.) 4. Baptism and the Lord's Supper; which were 
instituted under the Christian Dispensation as an Epitome of the whole 
Ceremonial Law. — Inference from the whole. V. Additional Argument, 
1 . Proposed and Illustrated : A false Rule of Interpretation could not draw 
from the Scriptures a coherent sense throughout : But the Doctrine of Ana- 
logies does this : Wherefore it must be the True Rule of Interpretation, and 
the Scriptures must be written according to it. 2. The argument afforded 
by the fact, That a number of Writers, living at distant periods, produced 
Compositions all uniformly following this Law. — Inference repeated, — That 
the Style in which the Scriptures are composed is the truly Divine Style of 
Writing ; and that nothing short of Plenary Divine Inspiration could be 
adequate to their production. Thus they are truly denominated the Wokd 
of God. 

LECTURE VI— Page 306 to 354. 

THE WHOLE FABRIC OF INFIDET. OBJECTIONS SHEWN TO BE WITHOUT 
FOUNDATION. 

I. General View of the System and Arguments of the preceding Lectures : 
1. The first stage of the Argument: 2. The second: 3. The third: Im- 
portant additional Testimony : 4. The last. II. The four Classes of Infidel 
Objections stated in the first Lecture resumed, and examined by the View 
which has been developed of the nature of the Holy Word, and of the means 
of deciphering its true Signification. 1. Imputed Inconsistencies with 
Reason and Science considered : (1.) Style of Writing in the first part of 
the book of Genesis. (2.) Genius of Mankind in the Primeval Ages. 
(3.) Coincidences between the Narratives of this part of Scripture and 
ancient Traditions.— Conclusion : That the Word of God pronounces no 
dictum upon the questions agitated by Science. 2. Imputed Contradictions 



XVI CONTENTS. 

considered. (1.) The case of the water turned into blood by the Magicians 
of Egypt. (2.) Why were four Gospels written? (3.) Theory of their 
variations proposed. (4.) Illustrated by the different accounts of the treat- 
ment and behaviour of the Lord Jesus Christ at the Crucifixion : (5.) By 
the two modes of representing the conduct of the Thieves. (6.) The two 
accounts of the Temptation in the Wilderness. (7.) Matthew's naming Jere- 
miah instead of Zechariah a necessary result of his Inspiration. — Conclusion : 
That the varying statements of the Sacred Writers, fairly interpreted, actu- 
ally become evidences of their Inspiration. 3. Imputed Violations of 
Morality considered. (1.) That they only evince the Representative Cha- 
racter of the Israelitish Dispensation. (2.) David not the Pattern of a saint, 
but the Type of one. 4. Imputed Insignificance considered. General Reply 
confirmed; — That all such objections arise from taking a merely superficial 
view of the Sacred Scriptures, and from an utter Ignorance of their true 
Nature. III. Address to Christians on the Necessity of taking higher 
ground in their Controversy with Deists. IV. Address to Deists, on the 
internal causes of Scepticism. Conclusion. 



APPENDIX. 



Page 



No. I. Proofs of the Symbolic Character of the Writings of the 

Old Testament afforded by the Revelation of John . i 

No. II. An Attempt to discriminate between the Books of Ple- 
nary Inspiration contained in the Bible, and those 
written by the Inspiration generally assigned to the 
whole vii 

No. III. The Great Objects and Phenomena of the Mundane 
System considered, as they are referred to in the Lan- 
guage of Prophecy, and of the Scriptures in general . xxvii 

No. IV. The Signification of the Clouds, when mentioned in 

Scripture, further Illustrated xxxiv 

No. V. Illustrations of the Jewish Character ; evincing its Apti- 
tude for a Dispensation consisting chiefly in External 
Rites xl 

No. VI. Critical Examination of Jephthah's Vow . . . x vi 

No. VII. Arguments for the Literal Interpretation of the first part 

of Genesis considered liii 

No, VIII. Remarks on the Recent Volume of Bampton Lectures, by 
the late Rev. J. J. Conybeare, M.A. ; and on the Sup- 
port which it affords to the main Principle of the 
present Work # lv 



PLENARY INSPIRATION OF THE 
SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 



LECTURE I. 

INTRODUCTORY. INFIDEL OBJECTIONS STATED. 

Prevalence of infidel sentiments, and of an increasing tendency to think meanly of the 
Scriptures.— Their Plenary Inspiration generally relinquished.— Design of these Lectures 
stated.— Necessity of Revelation.— The character thatmws* belong to a Composition which 
has God for its Author.— Inquiry proposed : Do the books called the Holy Scriptures come 
up to this character ?— Answered in the afifirmative by the Lecturer, but the proof re- 
served for the subsequent Lectures: — Answered in the negative by the Deist, on the 
alleged grounds, that the books in question contain statements that are contradictory to 
each other, some that are at variance with science and reason, and some that are repug- 
nant to morality ; and that, beside these positive objections, the greater part of them is 
occupied with indifferent and insignificant matters.— General reply, that all such objec- 
tions arise from taking a merely superficial view of the Scriptures, and from an ignorance 
of their true nature ; and that they may be retorted so as to assist in proving what the 
true nature of the Scriptures is.— Appeal to the reader, on the ill consequences of infi- 
delity. 

There is a prediction in the second Epistle of Peter*, which can 
hardly fail to present itself to the thoughts of every believer in 
Divine Revelation, when he reflects upon the deluge of infidelity, 
which, in the present times, is seen pouring upon the world. The 
apostle says, " there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking 
after their own lusts :" upon which it has been justly remarked by 
advocates of Christianity, that the circumstance of the wide diffu- 
sion of hostility to Eevelation which it is the lot of the present 
generation to witness, itself affords a testimony of the truth of the 
Scriptures ; since it is the fulfilment of a prophecy which the Scrip- 
tures contain. Another divine prediction of Holy Writ, will also 
frequently occur to the recollection of him who contemplates this 
state of things : Jesus Christ says, " Heaven and earth shall pass 
away, but my words shall not pass away."f It is now generally 
admitted by expositors of Scripture, that the so often occurring 
* Ch. iii. ver. 3. f Matt. xxiv. 35. 

1 



2 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

prophetical figure of the passing away of heaven and earth, denotes 
the overturning of ecclesiastical and civil establishments. Of these 
occurrences the present generation has seen more extensive ex- 
amples, than have before been witnessed since the first establish- 
ment of Christianity ; and were it not for the divine assurance that 
the words of Jesus Christ shall not pass away, — (and these words, 
in fact, include the whole of the Word of God, since we are assured 
by Peter that the spirit which inspired the old prophets was the 
spirit of Christ* ; — were it not for this divine assurance,) we might 
almost expect, when we observe the activity with which deistical 
publications are circulated, and the avidity with which, in too many 
cases, their poison is imbibed, that, amongst the moral and civil 
revolutions of which the present is so remarkable an era, all belief 
in divine revelation would be abolished from the human mind ; the 
awful consequences of which would be, to place the moral world in 
a situation precisely similar to that in which the world of nature 
would stand, were the sun to be abolished from the firmament. 
In a neighbouring nation we actually have seen this revolution tem- 
porarily effected. Profligacy of manners and atheistical writings 
had together destroyed, in a great portion of the people, all 
reverence for revealed truth : persons of this class possessed them- 
selves of the government; and decrees were issued proclaiming 
Christianity abolished, and disowning any Divinity but the Divinity 
of reason. The horrors that ensued, by exciting a re-action, pre- 
pared indeed the way for re-establishing the profession of Christi- 
anity; but as this is there disguised among the mummeries of 
Popery, it is not likely, though now favoured by the government, 
to make many but political conversions : and the disregard to the 
Word of God appears to be nearly as great as ever, though con- 
tempt for it is not so indecently expressed. Indeed, there is ample 
reason for believing, that, in all Roman Catholic countries, infidelity, 
in a greater or less degree, is prevalent with most of those, who 
consider themselves raised above the vulgar by station and acquire- 
ments. 

Are the Protestant countries on the continent of Europe exempt 

from the contagion ? There is reason to apprehend, that the poison 

of infidelity is here also spreading, not less rapidly than where it 

is fostered by the corruptions of the Church of Eome : of which 

* 1 Ep. i. 11. 



I.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 3 

ample evidence might be afforded. But here also another extra- 
ordinary feature, discovering the tendencies of the present age in 
regard to the belief in revelation, becomes conspicuous. Not only 
is absolute infidelity very prevalent, but the religion that is pro- 
fessed is more and more assuming a character, which renders it 
different from infidelity, less in substance than in name. The most 
low and unworthy ideas of the Christian Kedeemer are daily super- 
seding the honour that is his due ; and, in the same ratio, ideas 
equally low and unworthy regarding the inspiration of the Sacred 
Volume, are spreading with celerity. The church of Geneva, so 
long regarded by a large portion of the Christian world as the 
centre of illumination, has published a reformed creed, disavowing 
any belief in the divinity of the Saviour : and the universities of 
Germany, which have formerly rendered such essential services to 
the cause of Biblical Learning, seem now to be labouring, through 
the works of their Professors, to reduce the standard of inspiration 
to as low a degree as is consistent with any belief, that the books 
which claim it contain a system of true religion ; &o low indeed, 
that it becomes difficult to perceive wherein they differ from the 
productions of writers who do not pretend to be inspired. A few 
years since, Dr. G. Paulus, a Professor in the University of Jena, 
and a Clergyman, published a new edition of the works of the cele- 
brated atheist or pantheist, Spinoza, with a laudatory preface, in 
which he maintains, that the sentiments of this acknowledged 
infidel respecting the inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures, are the 
same which, in the hands of Professor Eichhorn of the University 
of Gottingen, have led to such superior elucidations of the holy 
Volume. This Professor Eichhorn has published an Introduction 
to the Old and New Testaments, with several other works on Bib- 
lical criticism, which have been hailed with enthusiasm among his 
learned compatriots, as prodigies of erudition and genius. By 
erudition and genius he doubtless is distinguished : but how far his 
works tend to exalt the Scriptures, however they may elucidate 
questions connected with their language and with oriental anti- 
quities, will be seen when it is stated, that, like our excentric 
countryman, Dr. Geddes, he denies any inspiration to Moses. And 
it is well known that similar latitudinarianism, miscalled liberality, 
characterizes the works of the modern German literati, and teachers 
of Christianity, in general. 

1* 



4 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

Let us now turn our eyes for a moment to our own country. 
Britain may undoubtedly be regarded as the Latium of modern 
times. As in Latium, according to the fables of the ancient mytho- 
logists, the virtues of the golden age took refuge after they had 
been banished from the rest of the world ; so is it in Britain, un- 
questionably, that the greatest portion of true religion is in these 
ages to be found. Here also, however, the destroying plague has 
been let loose; and its ravages have been extensive. Owing in 
part to the freedom which the human mind in this favoured country 
enjoys, and the liberty of publishing its thoughts which is neces- 
sary to the keeping alive of this inestimable privilege, deistical and 
atheistical writings have long been here abundant : a Hobbes set the 
example to Spinoza, as did a Toland and Tindal to Voltaire : and 
the most desponding anticipations were long ago formed by the 
friends of religion, of the devastating effects which might finally 
result from the audacity of its assailants. What would these 
worthy persons have thought, had they witnessed the indecency, as 
well as audacity, which characterizes the efforts of infidelity in the 
present age ? In their times, but comparatively a few speculative 
persons entertained any doubts of the truth of the Christian reli- 
gion: and the attacks which were then made against it only 
excited attention in the reading portion of society, which in those 
days was comparatively small : nay, the authors of such attacks then 
only addressed them to men of education, and thought the attempt 
to unsettle the faith of the multitude too desperate an experiment. 
How different this conduct from that of the present generation of 
the opposers of Revelation ! Wisely concluding, that the less in- 
formed the mind is, the less will it be capable of detecting the fal- 
lacy of their arguments, the infidels of the present day chiefly aim 
at accommodating their publications to the taste of the mob; whose 
passions, also, they labour to enlist on their side, still more than 
to convince their understanding. Arrogant assertion, coarse ridi- 
cule, affected contempt, bold falsehood, and overweening dogma- 
tism, with unfounded representations of the happiness which would 
ensue were mankind liberated from what they call the tyranny of 
kings and priests, and placed under no controul but that of the 
presumed infallible guide, Reason; — these are the chief weapons 
by which they now make conquests : and as there is undoubtedly 
much in the human heart, to which all this is congenial and agree- 



I.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 5 

able, their success has certainly been extensive and alarming. The 
profligate, to whom the restraints of religion are irksome, finds it 
extremely consolatory to be assured, that the principles which 
govern his conduct are really " the Principles of Nature" : and the 
sciolist in learning feels it highly gratifying to his vanity, to decry 
as fallacious, all that is beyond the reach of his puny attainment. 
Scepticism — as incredulity is flatteringly called, — may be termed a 
short road to universal knowledge : for he who derides as idle spe- 
culation whatever he cannot grasp by the exercise of his sluggish 
senses, is in his own conceit as wise as the archangel, to whom all 
the mysteries of God's providence stand open, and all the wonders 
of the Creative Energy are known. 

Here then are two classes of persons among whom the contagion 
of infidelity has spread rapidly indeed. But is it among such, only, 
that its converts are to be found ? This we would by no means 
presume to assert. No doubt, many have had their minds unset- 
tled in regard to the truth of revealed religion, who were not pre- 
pared to take the inoculation of infidelity by a predisposed state of 
the mental organization ; many even, to whom it would be a great 
relief, could they have their doubts removed to the full satisfaction 
of their understanding. These are they who have had their atten- 
tion directed to certain difficulties which appear to exist in the 
sacred volume ; and which must ever appear as real difficulties to 
those who are not aware of the true nature of every divine compo- 
sition, and of the design for which, and the principles according to 
which, it is written ; although when these are correctly understood, 
all seeming inconsistencies at once disappear. Whilst then these 
difficulties are so industriously brought forward, and presented to 
the attention with every comment that can help to make them 
appear insuperable ; whilst also an antidote of sufficient power is 
not afforded by the writings which have been published in reply, — 
for such, I fear, must be allowed to be the fact ; — we cannot so 
much wonder at the immense increase of infidel sentiment at the 
present day; an increase which is really tremendous and appalling; 
such as must excite the strongest apprehensions of the final issue 
with all who do not confidently rely on the assurance of Jesus 
Christ : — "Heaven and earth shall pass away : but my words shall 
not pass away." 

And whilst the fortress ©f revelation is thus furiously assailed by 
those without, how is it defended by those within? Alas! by 



6 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

giving up its outworks to the enemy, and leaving unguarded a pas- 
sage to the citadel. I am not now speaking of the works that 
have been written in defence of Christianity ; but of the principles 
which, in modern times, have been laid down from high authority, 
regarding the inspiration of the Scriptures themselves. By way, 
as it would, appear, of compromising the matter with the enemy, 
the doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Holy "Word has, within 
a recent period, been generally relinquished by those who sit in 
Moses' seat, and who pronounce, ex cathedra, what the church is 
to believe. I allude not to such as are generally regarded as apos- 
tates from the orthodox faith ; but the authorities to which I refer, 
are the acknowledged oracles of the orthodox church. The present 
Bishop of Winchester*, for example, in his work designed for the 
instruction of young clergymen, called " the Elements of Christian 
Theology," lays down the doctrine upon this question thus : 
" When it is said that the Sacred Scriptures are divinely inspired, 
we are not to understand that God suggested every word, or dic- 
tated every expression. From the different styles in which the 
books are written, and from the different manners in which the 
same events are related and predicted by different authors, it ap- 
pears, that the sacred penmen were permitted to write as their 
several tempers, understandings, and habits of life, directed; and 
that the knowledge communicated to them by inspiration on the 
subject of their writings, was applied in the same manner as any 
knowledge acquired by ordinary means. Nor is it to be supposed 
that they ivere thus inspired in every fact tchich they related, or in 
every precept which they delivered. They were left to the common 
use of their faculties, and did not, upon every occasion, stand in 
need of supernatural communication ; but whenever, and as far as, 
divine assistance was necessary, it was always afforded." Again 
he says, " Though it is evident that the sacred historians sometimes 
wrote under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it does 
not follow that they derived from revelation the knowledge of those 
things which might be collected from the common sources of human 
intelligence. It is sufficient to believe, that by the general super- 
intendence of the Holy Spirit, they were directed in the choice of 
their materials, enlightened to judge of the truth and importance 
of those accounts from which they borrowed their information," 

* 1825. Dr. G. Tomline. The family name of this prelate was Pretyman; 
but he took that of Tomline on inheriting an estate left to him. — H. 



I.J THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 7 

(and which he states afterwards were accounts written by uninspired 
men) "and prevented from recording any material error" He is. 
here treating of the writers of the Old Testament ; of the writers 
of the Xew Testament his sentiments are the same. He says, " If 
we believe that God sent Christ into the world to found a universal 
religion, and that, by the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, he 
empowered the apostles to propagate the gospel, as stated in these 
books, we cannot but believe that he would, by his immediate in- 
terposition, enable those whom he appointed to record the gospel 
for the use of future ages, to write without the omission of any 
important truth, or the insertion of any material error" And 
these sentiments are generally received as orthodox — are quoted 
from Bishop Law, and recommended, though not expressly adopted, 
by the late Bishop Watson, in his answer to Paine, and are laid 
down in numerous works as the true principles of Scripture Inspi- 
ration. What ideas the profoundly learned Bishop Marsh, one of 
the Professors of Divinity at Cambridge, entertains of the inspira- 
tion of the Sacred Scriptures, is evident from his laboured scheme 
to account for the composition of the three first gospels, as given 
with his translation of Michaelis's Introduction to the New Testa- 
ment ; in which he supposes a principal and a supplemental sketch 
of the Saviour's life and discourses to have been first drawn up by 
unknown authors, — to have had various additions made to them 
afterwards as they passed through various unknown hands, — and 
at last to have been digested by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, with 
further additions, into the form of their respective gospels. Other 
statements of this nature might be mentioned ; but they all agree 
in the leading principle of allowing only a very partial inspiration 
to the sacred writers. Bishop Lowth, for instance, is a name ever 
to be mentioned with respect by the Biblical student, for his valua- 
ble Prelections on Hebrew poetry, and Yersion of Isaiah : but when 
he represents the prophets as borrowing ideas from one another, 
and as improving or debasing what they thus borrowed according 
to the sublimity of their poetical genius or the purity of their criti- 
cal taste ; does he not degrade them, in a great degree, from pro- 
phets to mere poets? He certainly endeavours to elevate our 
esteem for their talents as men ; but he assists in abolishing our 
reverence for their writings as flowing from the immediate dictate 
of God. 



8 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

Now how do Deists receive these concessions so liberally made ? 
The advocates of Eevelation may be regarded as saying to them, 
f See ! we have come half way to meet you : surely you will not 
obstinately refuse belief, now that we require you to believe so 
little." What does the Deist answer? He says, "You are 
admitting, as fast as you can, that we are in the right. If you, 
who view the subject through the prejudices of your profession, 
are constrained to give up half of what we demand, unbiassed 
persons will augur from the admission, that truth would require a 
surrender of the whole." No, my friends and brethren ! he who 
would effectually defend the Christian faith must take his station 
on higher ground than this. What ! tell the world, that to escape 
the increasing influence of infidelity, they must surrender the 
plenary inspiration of the Scriptures ! As well might we tell them, 
ihat to obtain security when a flood is rising, they should quit the 
top of the mountain to take refuge in a cave at its base. 

Assuredly, this is a state of things, calculated to fill the breast 
of the sincere and humble Christian with profound concern, if not 
with deep alarm. On the one hand, he beholds Divine Eevelation 
assaulted with unprecedented fury and subtlety by those who avow 
themselves as its enemies ; — on the other, he sees it half betrayed 
and deserted by those who regard themselves as its friends. 
Every devout believer in Revelation feels an inward predilection 
for the opinion, that the inspiration of a divinely communicated 
writing must be plenary and absolute. He feels great pain on 
being told, that this is a mistaken notion; — that he must sur- 
render many things in the Sacred Writings to the enemy, to 
retain any chance of preserving the rest; — that he must believe the 
writers of the Scriptures to have been men liable to error, as a pre- 
liminary to his assurance that the religion of the Scriptures is true. 
Surely, every one whose heart does not take part with the assailant of 
his faith, must be glad to be relieved from the necessity of making sur- 
renders so fatal. The bowed staff eagerly springs back to its natural 
straightness, when lightened of the weight under which it bent : so he 
who has relinquished the doctrine of plenary inspiration, only because 
he saw no other way of accounting for the difficulties which have 
been pointed out in the Sacred Writings, will return to it with joy, 
as soon as he sees how those difficulties may be explained, without 
the hypothesis of error in the inspired penman. Reflection, then, 



I.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 9 

upon these things, has occasioned a desire in myself and some 
friends, to bring before the public, a view of the nature of the 
Holy Word in which this is done, — a view which, I strongly feel, 
is the only one that places the Divine Book beyond the reach of 
injury from infidel objections. It is, however, with much diffi- 
dence, that I address an auditory from a station, which is at other 
times occupied by some of the ablest men, whom the Christian 
ministry of this metroplis can boast * : [and I feel the same self- 
distrust, in a still greater degree, on addressing the public from 
the press.] My only hope of obtaining acceptance, is founded in 
my conviction of the solidity of the sentiments, which I am to be 
the very inadequate organ of unfolding : sure, also, I am, that no 
candid minds will be less pleased with the truth, because it is 
offered through a channel, which they might not previously have sup- 
posed adapted to convey it. The defence of the oracles which con- 
tain the revelation of the Christian religion, is the common duty 
of all who assume the Christian name: and all who are sincerely 
attached to the Christian cause, will extend the right hand of 
fellowship to any one, be he otherwise who he may, who can 
point out a new line of defence, and shew how the divine authority 
of Revelation may be more effectually upheld. We are assured, 
also, that the Lord's care over his Church can never be intermitted ; 
that in proportion to the magnitude of the dangers to which she is 
exposed, will be the communication of means by which she may 
be defended : and it is perfectly in harmony with the ordinary 
economy of Divine Providence, that those means should come from 
a quarter whence they are least "expected. Confiding then in the 
divine support, on the one hand, and relying, on the other, on the 
charity and love of truth which must ever reign in the bosom of 
the true Christian ; — appealing also to the liberality and regard to 
pure reason which is constantly professed by the Deist ; I beg the 
favourable aud earnest attention of this auditory, [and of the 
reader,] while I discuss the subjects announced for consideration in 
these Lectures. 

The question of the Necessity of Divine Revelation, has been so 
frequently and so satisfactorily treated by others, that, as it is my 

* A series of Lectures on Scripture Biography was then in a course of delivery 
at Albion Hall, by the most eminent Ministers of the Independent Connexions 

1* ( 



10 PLENAIIY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

wish, as far as possible, to avoid going over ground that has been 
trodden before, I shall not dwell long on this part of the subject. 

The view which I would take of this question, is this. It is 
certain, that all the facts with which history brings us acquainted 
in regard to the state of mankind in former ages, and all those 
which are supplied to us by the observations of travellers respect- 
ing the present state of mankind in the different countries on the 
globe, afford the most decided evidence, that, without aid from 
Eevelation, man is little better than a brute ; — that to Eevelation 
are owing all the superior excellences which ennoble his character 
as a man. Infidel writers talk of the light of reason, and they 
speak of the duties of man in society, with every thing necessary 
to his moral and intellectual improvement, as being easily dedu- 
cible by the light of nature. The high utility of these sources of 
intelligence I readily admit : but when I hear such assertions as 
these, I always feel a wish to be informed how it has happened, 
that the light of nature never conducted man to these discoveries, 
except when Nature had the means of lighting her candle at the 
torch of Eevelation. It is evidently from the general improvement 
in the intelligence of the human mind which Eevelation has pro- 
duced, that modern infidels have been enabled to illuminate their 
reveries with some beautiful truths : These truths were not dis- 
covered to them either by the light of nature or the light of reason : 
they took them first from that religion in which they had been 
brought up; and then, finding them recommend themselves by their 
own evidence, and to be agreeable to the light of reason and nature, 
they have ascribed them to that source ; and thus they set up the 
offspring of Eevelation to destroy the authority of ilie parent. 

Never yet was a nation known to have emerged from barbarism 
to civilization, without instruction communicated, either imme- 
diately or traditionally, from Eevelation. According to the testi- 
mony both of the Scriptures, and of other ancient authorities, all 
religion, which was all originally founded in Eevelation, begtm in 
the east, and has thence been diffused in the west ; and it is well 
known, that the same has been the tract in which civilization has 
flowed over the world. The first created men had, as the Scriptures 
assure us, the knowledge of God and of their duty communicated 
to them by immediate Eevelation. After the flood, Eevelation was 
continued in the family of Noah, by whose posterity all the 



I.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 11 

powerful and highly polished nations of antiquity were founded. 
Even the Grecian and other ancient mythologies were corruptions 
of the originally true religion communicated by Eevelation to Noah 
and his descendants. This takes away the plea of those, who 
would appeal to the philosophers of Greece as examples of the 
efficacy of the light of nature. This plea has indeed been well 
answered by Leland and others, who have shewn, that, under the 
name of philosophy, the most ridiculous fancies in theory, and the 
most corrupt abominations in morals, were often foisted on man- 
kind, and that a man would wander in darkness indeed, who should 
draw all his light from such fountains alone. But admitting, for 
argument's sake, that it would be safe to take the best of the phi- 
losophers as guides in religion and morals : it is a well known fact, 
that both Plato and Pythagoras derived a part of their systems 
from the priests of Egypt, whom they went expressly to consult ; 
and though the pure light of Eevelation was in Egypt greatly 
obscured, yet it is certain that all the true knowledge of a religious 
nature which the Egyptians possessed, was what remained from 
their original descent from the son of Noah. As natives of Greece 
then, where the religion derived from the revelation to Noah ex- 
isted under one form of corruption, and as students in Egypt, 
where the same original religion existed under another form of cor- 
ruption, Pythagoras and Plato possessed themselves of all the 
remains of knowledge which tradition had preserved from that 
Eevelation. I would by no means affirm, as some learned men 
have done, that Plato borrowed any of his ideas from the Jews, or 
that the writings of Moses afforded any of the materials for the 
Grecian mythology: but there was a revelation existing in the 
world before that given by the instrumentality of Moses, and which 
was similar to his in substance, though different in form ; and this, 
turned into symbolic representations, was the foundation of the 
popular religion, whilst the ideas veiled in those symbols were the 
basis of philosophic speculation, among all the distinguished 
nations of antiquity. 

The sceptic may laugh at the assertion, but I am satisfied that 
they who can view things in their causes will see its truth ; that, 
whatever they who would separate science from religion may pretend 
to the contrary, Eevelation is, in an indirect manner, the fountain-head 
of all science : for it is in consequence of the elevation of the facul- 



12 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

ties that is occasioned by the reception of the truths which are the 
objects of revelation, and the consequent illumination of the mind 
with heavenly light, (allow this phrase, ye advocates of the light of 
of nature ? — for if there be such a thing as Revelation, the percep- 
tions which are its offspring must be the progeny of heavenly light,) 
that it becomes receptive of higher degrees of natural light, and is 
capable of making greater discoveries in the truths which are the 
objects of science. It is true that these maybe separated, and that 
men may excel in natural science, who ridicule every thing spiri- 
tual : yet it is only in consequence of their receiving the outward 
part of the sphere of illumination, which continually flows from 
God into the human mind, through the medium of those who re- 
ceive the internal part of it, by admitting the truths of Revelation, 
that progress is made in natural science. All real intelligence, on 
whatever subject, must unquestionably be the product of a sphere 
of illumination flowing continually from God. The highest objects 
of tins illumination must be the truths that relate to man's welfare 
as an immortal being, — the lowest, those which conduce only to his 
well-being in this world. Intelligence in the former respect their) 
must be considered as the operation of an interior sphere of divine 
illumination ; and intelligence in the latter, as the operation of an 
exterior sphere of the same. Now the former must be to the latter, 
just what the soul is to the body : and the latter can no more be 
entirely separated from the former without extinction, than the 
body can be separated from the soul without death. Again : Illu- 
mination in spiritual things is to illumination in natural, what the 
heart is to the members. If the femoral artery be divided and 
secured, the limb will still receive nourishment through the anas- 
tomosing vessels : this answers to the case of the existence of 
scientific attainments, with those who deny religion; who yet re- 
ceive the exterior sphere of illumination from God, in consequence 
of living in connexion with those who receive the interior sphere 
also : but separate the limb entirely from communication with 
the heart, by dividing all the vessels, and the limb will speedily 
waste away : and this exhibits the fate of science, were it altogether 
separated from Revelation. Transplant then a colony of atheistic 
philosophers (Deists, as retaining from Revelation the belief of a 
God, would not be proper subjects for the experiment : — but trans- 
plant a colony of atheistic men of learning,) to a remote corner of 



I.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 13 

the globe, and allow them no communication whatever with the dis- 
ciples of Eevelation ; and the certain effect would be, that they would 
degenerate by degrees into absolute barbarism. To what cause can 
be attributed the wonderful superiority in literature and the arts, 
which the inhabitants of Christendom have so long maintained over 
all the other nations on the globe, but to their minds being more 
receptive of light of all kinds, in consequence of their admitting 
the light of Eevelation? How extraordinary too is the power 
which they derive from this source ! See how they have covered 
the whole western world with their colonies, and how the aborigi- 
nal inhabitants have faded from before them! Behold what an 
empire they have established in the east, almost without coloniza- 
tion, by the pure force of moral superiority ! It is not meant to 
be asserted that they have always made the best use of their supe- 
riority, but only that it unquestionably exists. Superiority in arms 
is, undoubtedly, the offspring of superiority in arts and science ; 
and these are the products of natural light, which is the offspring 
of spiritual ; and thus Christians are the arbiters of the destinies 
of the world, because they are the depositories of the Word of God. 
As the tropical climates so immensely excel all others in the luxu- 
riance of their vegetable productions, because they receive most 
directly the recreating energies of the orb of day ; and as all other 
countries are productive or otherwise according to the proportion 
which they obtain of the vivifying beams, till, at the poles, perpe- 
tual sterility reigns : so are the powers of the human mind invigo- 
rated or otherwise in proportion to their reception of the beams of 
Eevelation, and when excluded from these, they languish in the 
torpor of dulness and ignorance. Paradoxical, then, as the assertion 
may sound in the ears of some, it is a certain fact, that could those 
who cultivate science without regard to religion, and who reject the 
Holy Word, the parent of all science, accomplish the object which 
some of them have aimed at, of destroying the Holy Word by the 
aid of her rebel progeny ; they would accomplish much more than 
they intended : in digging a grave for Eeligion, they would open 
one, in which, not long afterwards, Science also would be en- 
tombed. 

In one word, Until an instance can be adduced of a nation that 
has flourished in arts, morals, and civilization, without any assist- 
ance from Eevelation, we have full reason for concluding, that Ee- 



14 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

velation is necessary. For the attainment even of these natural 
benefits, — in order to man's enjoyment of the true excellences and 
attaining the perfections of his nature, in this life, the light of Ke- 
velation is indispensable : of the existence and attributes of God, 
of his own immortality, of the existence and nature of a life here- 
after, and of the means by which he may there attain the true end 
of his being, without the light of Kevelation, he would know no- 
thing at all. Here then it becomes indispensable indeed; and 
therefore, in all ages of the world, it has been afforded. 

Since then we have such ample reason for concluding, that a 
revelation from God, under some form or other, is absolutely neces- 
sary to the well-being of man : — on the supposition that God, to 
make the advantages of revelation constant and permanent, should 
cause it to be communicated in a written composition ; what is the 
character which, we may justly conclude, such a written revelation 
would assume ? Our ideas on this question will be regulated by 
the ideas we have conceived of the nature of God Himself : cer- 
tainly, if these are such as are worthy of the Father of creation, we 
shall be led to expect something of a most exalted nature in a 
written revelation of his will. Who then is this wonderful Being, 
whom we assume to be the author of the writings called the Holy 
Word ? Infidelity itself must allow, that this question cannot be 
more appropriately answered, than is done, as from the mouth of 
the Lord Himself, by the prophet Isaiah : " I am the First, and 
I am the Last, and beside me there is no God." " Who has 
measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out 
heaven with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth, in a 
measure, or weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a 
balance ? Who has directed the spirit of the Lord, or, being his 
counsellor, has taught him ? With whom took he counsel, or who 
instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught 
him knowledge, and shewed him the way of understanding ? Be- 
hold, the nations are as the drop of a bucket, and are counted as 
the small dust of the balance : behold, he taketh up the isles as a 
very little thing : Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, and the beasts 
thereof for a burnt offering ! All nations before him are as nothing, 
and they are counted to him as less than nothing, and vanity. To 
whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare 



I.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 15 

unto him?" He is "the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth 
eternity, whose name is Holy." * It is by such images as these 
that the prophets of the Old Testament depict the grandeur of the 
Author of the Bible ; nor does the New Testament describe him in 
less impressive terms. When he manifested himself to John, as 
related in the first chapter of the Revelation, it is written ; " I am 
Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, saith the Lord, 
Who Is, and Who Was, and Who is to Come, the Almighty." f 
— I forbear to add any thing to these scriptural representations : 
for in attempting to delineate the ineffable perfections of God, all 
human language must fall infinitely too low : — yea, this is a theme 
of so transcendant a nature, that the tongues of angels could 
never do it justice. Let us elevate our ideas as far as we possibly 
can above all that is earthly and gross ; — let us form the grand- 
est conceptions we possibly can of the intense ardour of the 
Divine Love, of the transcendant brightness of the Divine Wis- 
dom, and of the immense extension of the Divine Omnipotence : 
and then let us recollect, that these Divine Attributes are infi- 
nitely beyond all that the highest efforts of imagination can con- 
ceive. 

Now whilst we are meditating on these three grand attributes 
of Deity, — his Love, his Wisdom, and his Power ; — if we would 
endeavour to picture to our thoughts how far they might respec- 
tively be exerted, we certainly could never conceive any thing 
beyond what the Scriptures represent them as having actually per- 
formed. Thus if we were to consider in what works the Divine 
Love might most evidently be displayed, we assuredly could 
imagine nothing more replete therewith than the wonders of pur 
own creation and redemption. For the Lord doubtless created 
mankind expressly with the design to bless them with every feli- 
city: he also provided an eternal heaven in which that felicity 
might be permanently enjoyed : and what could Infinite Love do 
more ? Yet the Love of the Lord has done more. For when man 
had entirely receded from the end of his creation, such was the 
mercy of Him by whom all things tcere made, and tcithout whom 
was not any tiling made that was made %, that he assumed man's 
nature by incarnation in the world, in order to lead him back to 
his Maker and to bliss. 

* Isa. xliv. 6, xl. 12 to 18, lvii. 15. f Ver - 8 - % John *■ 3 - 



16 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [lEOT. 

If again we were to consider within ourselves in what man- 
ner the Divine Power of the Lord might be most evidently dis- 
played, we could not possibly imagine any more stupendous ex- 
ertions of it than those which we see around us. For what 
amazing power must that have been, by which this fair globe 
was formed, and peopled with innumerable inhabitants ; by which 
the enormous orb that gives us light and heat was created ; and 
by which myriads of other such immense repositories of heat 
and light, each with a train of dependant worlds, were called 
into existence, and arranged in an order that baffles all human 
intellect to conceive, through the boundless fields of immeasurable 
space ! 

Since then these manifest exhibitions of the Divine Love and 
the Divine Power are of so immense and magnificent a nature, 
must we not expect that an immediate revelation of the Divine 
Wisdom would be equally wonderful and glorious ? That in all 
the works which we have already mentioned the Divine Wisdom is 
apparent, and that none of them could have existed without it, is, 
indeed, a certain truth : still we may imagine a method in which 
the Divine Wisdom might be more immediately and expressly dis- 
covered. The readiest means we have of judging of the intelli- 
gence or understanding of men, is, by their sentiments and conver- 
sation ; and if a man writes a book, we expect to find in it the 
plainest evidence of his wisdom, knowledge, and mental attain- 
ments. Suppose then the Lord God Almighty himself should 
reveal his Wisdom in this manner ; suppose he should write, or 
cause to be written, a book for the instruction of man ; should we 
not conclude, that such as the Lord God Almighty is, such his 
book would be ? should we not infer, that such a book, like its 
author, must, as to its contents, be infinite and divine ? Should 
we not expect to see the glories of eternal wisdom shine forth from 
every page? All mankind, with one voice, must answer these 
questions in the affirmative. 

Here then we come to the great question that is at issue between 
the Christian and the Deist. It cannot be denied, we see, that a 
written Kevelation that is really from God, must answer the cha- 
racter which we have attempted to depict : Do then the writings 
contained in the book called the Bible, come up to this character ; 
and are we, on that account, authorised to receive those writings as 



THE SCREPTURES ASSERTED. 17 

the Word of God ? I hesitate not to reply, with the fullest con- 
fidence, that they do ; and I hope to make this in some degree 
evident before the conclusion of these Lectures. 

By the Deist, however, such an answer as this may be received 
with the utmost scorn. He will readily enough admit, that a book 
that is really communicated by divine inspiration, ought to answer 
to the character which we have just described : but he will declare, 
that he can discover no traces of such a character in the book 
called the Bible. He will affirm, that such a character as this can 
by no means belong to a book in which there are many statements 
that are contradictory to each other ; many that are contradictory 
to reason and science ; many that are contradictory to just mora- 
lity ; and the greater part of which book, moreover, is occupied 
with matters of an indifferent nature, unworthy of the concern of 
an Infinite Being. To these four heads may all the classes of 
infidel objections to the Scriptures be reduced. Some of the objec- 
tions are, in my estimation, fully refuted in the mauy valuable 
defences of the Scriptures which have been published by various 
authors ; but some of them, I candidly acknowledge, have not, in 
my opinion, been adequately met : the reason, I apprehend, has 
been, because the generality of those who have written in modem 
times in defence of the Sacred Scriptures, had not those just ideas 
of the primitive ages respecting their true nature and design, which 
alone can meet every objection fully and without reserve. I will 
here give a slight statement of the nature of each of these four 
classes of objections : and I will not shrink from stating them with 
all the force of which they are susceptible : — because I am com- 
pletely satisfied, that the views I shall develope in the succeeding 
Lectures, will be fully adequate to overthrow them all. It is of no 
real use to present things partially and unfairly : this always gives 
opportunity of triumph to an enemy; and will only secure the 
attachment of a friend, so long as we can secure his remaining in 
ignorance. 

Great stress has been laid by infidel objectors upon their charge 
of contradictory statements of facts : and of the instances alleged 
to be such, they have collected a great number. 

Thus, after Moses had directed Aaron, saying, " Take thy rod, 
and stretch out thy hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their 
streams, upon their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all 



18 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

their pools of water, that they may become blood ; and that there 
may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of 
wood, and in vessels of stone* *" — and after it is related, in the 
two next verses, that the miracle was performed accordingly;— 
objectors affirm that Moses must strangely have forgotten himself, 
to say in the verse following, " And the magicians of Egypt did so 
with their enchantments." When all the water of Egypt was 
turned into blood before, how, it is asked, could the magicians 
repeat the operation ? — But the varieties observable in the manner 
in which the different evangelists state the events of the life of 
Jesus Christ, sometimes disagreeing in the order of time, and some- 
times in the circumstances with which the facts were attended, 
have afforded an extensive field for opprobrious animadversions. 
When Matthewf, in relating the temptation of the Lord Jesus 
Christ in the wilderness, makes it conclude with the rebuff he gave 
the tempter on being offered the dominion of all the kingdoms of 
the world on condition that he would worship the Satanic deceiver; 
whilst Luke % places last the suggestion to throw himself down 
from the pinnacle of the temple in proof of his being the Son of 
God ; — it is argued, that the whole is a fiction, marked as such by 
the prevarication which so commonly attends the testimony of wit- 
nesses who undertake to support a falsehood : and Christian 
advocates, while they deny the inference that the whole or any part 
is a fiction, allow that one of the relators must have been mistaken 
in regard to the order of time, and that, though he relates true 
events, he relates them from his own imperfectly informed mind, 
and not from divine inspiration. Again, the objectors ask, What 
credit is to be given to the veracity of writers, — and, especially, 
what becomes of their claim to divine inspiration, — when they 
misquote so grossly the books which they esteemed sacred, as to 
assign to one writer what is only to be found in the book of 
another? Thus Matthew, on occasion of the purchase of the 
potter's field with the refunded price of the treachery of Judas, 
says, " Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the 
prophet, saying, ' And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the 
price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel 
did value, and gave them for the potter's field ; as the Lord ap- 
pointed me."§ The only passage in the Old Testament which 
* Exod. vii. 19. f Ch. iv. 10. % Ch. iv. 9. § Matt xxvii. 9, 10. 



I.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 19 

bears any similitude to this, is not in the book of Jeremiah, but 
in that of Zechariah.* And the harmonizers of Scripture have 
seen no way of surmounting this difficulty, but by one of two 
equally dangerous admissions; — either that Matthew teas mis- 
taken; or that the book of Jeremiah has come down to us in a very 
mutilated state. The only other example of deistical objections 
from alleged contradictions which I shall mention, is that drawn 
from the account of the two thieves who were crucified with Jesus, 
as given by Matthew and by Luke. After relating the cruel scoffs 
with which the Saviour was insulted by the Jews as he hung on 
the cross, Matthew saysf , " And the thieves also, which were cru- 
cified with him, cast the same in his teeth:" whereas Luke! 
affirms that only one of them displayed this brutality, and that he 
was rebuked for it by the other ; who, so far from mocking, " said 
unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy king- 
dom." This difference is accounted for variously by the commen- 
tators, some of whom say, that when Matthew speaks of thieves, 
in the plural, he only means one of them ; whilst others suppose 
that they both, at first, joined in the scoffs, but that one of them 
afterwards repented. But the objectors treat these solutions as 
mere evasions ; affirm, that the passages are in direct opposition ; 
and ask in triumph, which we are to receive as the pure Word 
of God. 

The second class of Objections — the imputed contradictions to 
science — chiefly regard the Mosaic account of the creation and the 
deluge. The account of the creation in the first chapter of Genesis, 
it is alleged, cannot possibly be true ; because the science of geology, 
which within a few years past has received such great improve- 
ments, fully evinces that the whole globe of earth, with its innu- 
merable tribes of inhabitants, vegetable, animal, and human, was 
not formed within the short space of six days, as there detailed. 
Besides, it is affirmed, that, independently of geology, reason alone 
proves the inaccuracy of the statement : for light is said to have 
been produced on the first day § ; whereas the sun, moon and stars 
were not created till the fourth day || ; and it is very certain, as we 
now often experience on a very cloudy night when the moon is 
below the horizon, that without sun, moon, and stars, there cannot 
* Ch. xi. 12, 13. f Ch. xxvii. 42. % Ch. xxiii. 39 to 43. 

§ Ver. 3, 5. j[ Ver. 16, 19. 



20 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

be any light. It is likewise related j that all the vegetable creation 
was produced on the third day*, thus before the formation of the 
sun ; yet every rustic knows that without the heat of the sun there 
can be no vegetation. So also the history states, that, after Cain 
had killed his brother, he was terrified lest every one that met him 
should kill him, to prevent which a mark was set on him by God f ; 
—which evidently supposes, that at this time the earth had nume- 
rous inhabitants; although, according to the record, none were 
then living on it, beside Cain, but his father and mother, who 
would know him whether a special mark were set on him or not. 
With regard to the deluge, they affirm it to be improbable that any 
general deluge ever should have existed, after the globe was once 
brought into a state adapted for the support of a human popula- 
tion ; and they raise great objections as to the possibility of pro- 
viding room in the ark sufficient for the accommodation of the 
immense multitude to which the prescribed numbers of animals of 
all species must have amounted %, and to contain, besides, an ade- 
quate stock of provision. According to the history, Noah with his 
companions, animal and human, remained in the ark a year and ten 
days § : and a long period must afterwards have elapsed before the 
devastated earth produced a sufficiency of new food for their support. 
This objection has been answered by calculations to prove the im- 
mense bulk of the ark, which, it has been shewn, must have been 
equal in magnitude to twenty first -rate men of war, and to more 
than forty of the largest Indiamen j but this, while it is alleged to 
be still quite insufficient for the purposes required, has furnished 
the infidel with another objection, who contends, that no vessel of 
such magnitude could be made to cohere together. 

But the most serious class of Objections against the divinity of 
the Sacred Scriptures, is that which has recently been urged in 
such shameless terms, declaring the Bible, — which well-disposed 
minds have revered for ages as the code of all perfect morality, — 
to be the most immoral book in the world ! Certainly, to ground 
this charge, as is in great part done, upon those passages in which 
criminal practices are mentioned for the express purpose of being 
condemned, and of warning mankind against the dreadful conse- 
quences which must overtake the perpetrators ; or even to ground 
* Ver. 11, 13. f Gen. iv. 14, 15. % Cha. vii. 2, 3. 

§ Cha. vii. 11; viii. 14. 



I.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 21 

it upon the incidental mention, without comment, of the commis- 
sion of great crimes ; — surely this evinces the accusation to have 
originated in nothing but deep malignity against, the Bible, its 
Author, and its friends. But the charge deserves more attention 
when they support it by instances of criminal conduct in persons 
that "are spoken of as peculiarly accepted by God. Thus they 
dwell much upon the case of Jacob, who, at the instigation of his 
mother B-ebekah, defrauded his brother Esau of his father's bless- 
ing, by a most extraordinary deception practised upon Isaac, and 
supported, when the old man suspected it, by the strongest asse- 
veration of a deliberate falsehood.* By the example of the same 
patriarch, who had two wives and two concubines ; — and indeed of 
nearly all the Jewish worthies and kings, a sanction is given, they 
allege, to polygamy and concubinage ; an opinion also which has 
not been confined to Deists, since Dr. Madan, a clergyman of the 
Church of England, published a well-known bookf with the design 
to prove, from the above examples, that polygamy and concubinage 
are allowable to Christians. But the objectors contend, that worse 
things are sanctioned even than these ; for by the examples of Ehud 
and Jael, licence is given to assassination. The former was one of 
the Judges, raised up, it is said, by the Lord, to deliver Israel 
when in subjection to the Moabites ; and who, under the pretence 
of carrying a present to the king of Moab, obtained a private au- 
dience, and then sheathed a dagger in his bowels. X Jael was the 
wife of Heber the Kenite ; and when Sisera, the general of the 
army of Jabin king of Hazor, was defeated by Deborah and Barak, 
" he fled, to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite ; for there 
was peace," it is expressly said " between Jabin the King of Hazor, 
and the house of Heber the Kenite. And Jael went out to meet 
Sisera, and said to him, Turn in my lord, turn in to me: fear not." 
And when she had thus inveigled him into her power, and had 
lulled him to sleep, she drove a nail through his temples § : for 
which act, it is said of her in the prophetic song of Deborah and 
Barak, "Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the 
Kenite be; blessed shall she be above women in the tent." || As 
for the scandals to which the conduct of David has given rise, who, 
though called the man after God's own hearty, was guilty both of 

* Gen. xxvii. 6 to 29. t Entitled Thelyphthora.—H. J Judges, iii. 15 to 22. 
§ Ch. iv. 17 to 21. || Ch. v. 24. ^ 1 Sam. xiii. 14 ; Acts, xiii. 22. 



22 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

nmrder amd adultery * ; these are too painful to dwell upon. 
Moved by such seeming incongruities, the Marcionites and Yalen- 
tinians, with other early sects of Gnostic Christians, regarded the 
God of the Jews as an evil genius, — as " the prince of this world" 
whose power Jesus came to destroy! : and the modern Deists 
charge Christians with blasphemy, for receiving the record of such 
transactions as the Word of God. 

The last class of Objections against the Sacred Scriptures, is 
drawn from what persons uninformed respecting their true nature, 
deem the insignificance of a large portion of their contents. What 
sort of ideas (they ask) must we form of the Divine Being, on the 
supposition that he is the Author of the Bible, when we find whole 
books filled with directions for the performance of ceremonies, 
which in themselves can be of no importance | : when we see 
chapters taken up with precepts respecting what sort of food his 
servants should eat, and what sort of clothing they should wear. § 
What minute cares must we suppose to engage his breast, when 
we see him giving such exact instructions about the dimensions of 
the Tabernacle, and the size and form of all its vessels ! |J What 
useless services must we imagine him to be pleased with, when we 
find him commanding such a variety of sacrifices to be offered, and 
giving such precise orders respecting the manner in which the 
minutest part of the rites was to be performed !^[ And what con- 
tracted and partial attachments and antipathies must we suppose 
to reign in his bosom, when we behold him exhibiting a peculiar 
regard to the insignificant nation of the Jews ** , to the exclusion 
of the rest of the world ; or when we hear of his commissioning 
prophets, with all the solemnity of divine authority, to denounce 
anathemas, not only against great metropolitan cities, such as Baby- 
lon ff, or Nineveh JJ, or Damascus § §, but against the insignificant 
abodes of an insignificant population, — such as the villages inha- 
bited by the tribes of Moab and Ammon || || ! Can the Father of the 
universe (they demand) feel such concern, and command it to be 

* 2 Sam. xi. 2, 15. f J ohn xii. 31 ; xiv. 31. 

% See Leviticus throughout, and much of Exodus, Numbers, and Deute- 
ronomy. 

§ Levit. xi. ; Exod. xxviiL [| Ex. xxv. to xxxL fl Lev. i. to vii. Sec. 

** Exod. xix. 5. ft Jer. 1. li. Jt Jonah L »* 

§§ Amos i. iil ||[| Jer. xlviii. xlix. 



I."| THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 23 

written in Ins Book for the information of the remotest generations, 
about the domestic affairs of nations whose very name was shortly 
to perish from the earth, — about the condition of cities which were 
presently to crumble into dust, and confound the skill of geogra- 
phers to decide where they stood ? Such solicitudes as these (our 
opponents will allege) might not be unbecoming in those fancied 
deities of the ancient heathens, Avho were supposed merely to pre- 
side over particular districts ; but how (they ask) can we conceive 
them to dwell in the breast of your great I Am, the High and 
Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, the Creator of myriads of 
worlds ? 

Such, under a general form, are the strongest objections which 
the adversaries of the Scriptures make to their divine authority ; 
and some of them, it must be candidly admitted, are such as to 
embarrass the rational inquirer, who enters on the study of the sub- 
ject without a correct idea of its proper bearing. However, plausi- 
ble as they may appear, I undertake to affirm, and hope in the suc- 
ceeding lectures to make good the affirmation, that to adduce from 
such considerations an argument against the divine inspiration of 
the Scriptures, is entirely to mistake the whole nature of the case ; 
that the argument thence deduced falls to the ground of itself, as 
soon as the true nature of the Word of God is seen, and the design 
is regarded for which it was given to mankind ; that, in fact, the 
existence of such things in the Scriptures as we have adverted to, 
affords no argument at all when adduced to prove that they have 
no origin in Divine Authority, but yields an irrefragable one when 
applied, as it only ought to be applied, to evince, that the Scrip- 
tures must contain much more in their bosom than is extant upon 
their surface. We propose then to wrest the weapons of the infidel 
out of his hands, and make them assist in establishing this great 
truth ; to prove by their aid, not that the Scriptures are not the 
"Word of God, but that they are ; to demonstrate by their help, 
what is the genuine Divine Style of "Writing, — what are the 
true characteristics of a Divine Composition. 

I will conclude at present with exhorting all who favour me 
with their attention, to be careful to cherish such thoughts of God, 
and of a revelation from God, as are worthy of the subject. Let 
us above all things be on our guard how we lightly fall in with the 



2-1 FLENAliY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

prevailing infidelity of the times. I have no doubt that there is 
nothing against which the Divine Providence is more anxious to 
preserve mankind, (so far as it can be done without infringing that 
freedom without which man would not be a man,) than from falling 
into contempt for the Holy Word : and that man cannot more per- 
versely abuse the noble powers with which he is endowed, nor run 
more directly counter to the designs of his Maker, than when he 
reasons himself out of all reverence for the written revelation of the 
Divine Will. Little as it may generally be supposed, the Holy 
Word is the chief medium of communication between man and 
heaven, and indeed between man and God ; which communication 
is cut off, and man falls into a merely natural and animal state, 
in proportion as he regards with contempt this highest and best 
of his Maker's gifts. Confirmed infidelity — such as extends to 
scorn and hatred against revelation — is in most cases the result of 
depravity of heart; how speciously soever this may be glossed 
over before the world by subtle reasonings, and a proud display of 
merely natural, superficial virtues; though indeed even this cover- 
ing is east away by some of the present race of Deists and Atheists; 
whose works exhibit such malignity of disposition, as sufficiently 
evinces the foulness of the source whence their sentiments issue. 
Most true is the saying of the Apostle; that "if the gospel be 
hid," — {finally •, that is ; — for we are not to judge harshly of those 
who, with sincere intentions, are embarrassed by honest doubts, — ) 
"it is hid to them that are lost:" — that is, to those who are so 
enslaved to worldly and selfish lusts, as to be unwilling to hear any 
thing, which, by calling them to higher pursuits, would disturb 
them in their sleep of darkness and of death. I make not these 
remarks with any wish to intimidate : — the freedom of the rational 
faculty in the present age is too complete to admit of intimidation : 
—but I make them to induce those whose tendency to scepticism 
has not settled into confirmed negation, fairly to weigh both sides 
of the question before they decide, and to go into the inquiry with 
that solmnity of attention which is reasonable, where so much is 
at stake. These I would entreat especially to regard that assu- 
rance of Jesus Christ, so consonant to pure reason, — that rectitude 
and purity of object in making our inquiries, is the best preserva- 
tive against error in drawing our conclusions : " If any man," says 
he, " will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be 



I.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 25 

of God." * This is the only safe rule, where the thing inquired 
into is religious truth ; and rny conviction is, that they who act in 
the spirit of this rule will find their reverence for the Holy Word 
continually increase, and their understanding of its contents conti- 
nually improve, till they are satisfied that, like the Word incarnate, 
it, " proceeded forth and came from God." 
* John vii. 17. 



26 PLENAKV. INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 



LECTURE II. 

THE TRUE NATURE OF THE SCRIPTURES CONSIDERED. 

Design with which the Scriptures were given, and the Nature of their Composition, stated 
for proof. L That the title " the Word of God," and the Plenary Inspiration which that 
title implies, are claimed by the Scriptures ; and that this is recognized by many critics. 
II. Proofs, from rational and philosophical grounds, that a Composition which is really 
" the Word of God," must contain stores of wisdom in its bosom, independently of any 
thing that appears on the surface. III. That the Composition received as the Word of 
God, continually assures us that it is inwardly replenished with such wisdom: — 1. This 
intimated by the writers of the Old Testament ;— 2. Expressly declared by the Lord Jesus 
Christ ; — 3. And by his Apostles ; — 4. Generally believed by the Christian Church, for 
many ages, from the Apostles downwards, and still recognized by the best Interpreters. 
IV. But this great truth having been abused, that endeavours have been made, during 
the last two or three Centuries, to restrict the meaning of the Scriptures to their literal 
sense alone Admitted, that all Points of Faith are to be established by the literal sense: 
But that the objection against a further sense would fall to the ground, could it be shewn, 
that the Scriptures are written throughout according to an immutable Law or Rule, a 
knowledge of which would, in explaining them, substitute certainty for conjecture, aud 
cut off the sources of vague interpretation. 

In our opening Lecture we took a brief view of the present state 
of public opinion, on the subject of the divine inspiration of the 
Word of God, or Holy Scriptures ; and we have seen that, while 
absolute infidelity is at present more prevalent throughout Chris- 
tendom than at any former period since the establishment of the 
Christian religion ; while the attacks upon the credibility of the 
Christian revelation were never so unremitted and daring; the 
cause has been half betrayed by many of its advocates, in the lax 
notions which they inculcate respecting the nature of Scriptural 
inspiration. We also drew a faint picture of what must be the 
character of a composition which has God for its Author ; we stated 
the four leading classes of objections by which infidels deny this 
character to belong to the writings called the Holy Scriptures ; and 
we advanced it as a fact, to be afterwards proved, that all difficul- 
ties would disappear, were the true nature of the Holy Scriptures 
distinctly understood, and the design for which they were given 
fully discerned. What this design was, we now proceed to 
state. 

When well-meaning men have been induced to make the admis- 



IT.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 27 

sion, that the sacred writers might not, on all occasions, be 
inspired, it has been in consequence of not considering, any more 
than the opposers to whose railings they have so far yielded, what 
was the sole design for which the divinely inspired volume was 
composed. Things, for example, that appear like contradictions, 
have in some places been pointed out ; and though most of these 
admit of being satisfactorily answered even in the literal sense, 
yet, because some of them, if we confine our attention to the literal 
sense alone, are attended with real difficulty, many, even of the 
sincere friends of Christianity, have admitted, that the Scriptures 
may, in some instances, have proceeded from fallible authors, — 
from penmen who were not at all times inspired ! This admission 
they have made, to open a door for retreat, in case any of the 
statements made in the letter should be proved by an adversary to 
be indefensible. But surely had it been consisdered, that what- 
ever proceeds immediately from God, in the nature of a communi- 
cation of his will, must be spiritual and divine, and that the sole 
design of it, in every part, must be, to improve man in the wisdom 
of salvation; it would have been seen, that merely historical circum- 
stances, however important to the actors in them, can never be of 
such moment in the eyes of an Infinite Being, as that the commu- 
nication of even the most correct knowledge respecting them can 
be a thing to have place in his express Word of revealed Wisdom, 
unless things of a far higher consequence be at the same time 
referred to and represented by them. Hence, when we find such 
things spoken of in a book which its Divine Author assures us was 
given from Him, and which bears so many marks, both internal 
and external, that evince the truth of this assurance ; we ought to 
be satisfied, that things of far higher, even of eternal moment, are 
shadowed forth, and represented to us, under these historical rela- 
tions ; — as we shall see presently is also expressly declared by the 
Lord and his Apostles. In short, we ought to conclude, (as we 
shall find both reason and Scripture assure us must be the case 
with every composition that has God for its Author,) that in the 
Sacred Scriptures there is an internal or spiritual sense, distinct 
from the letter, but contained within it, and no otherwise capable 
of being conveyed to human beings in this world of nature; which 
spiritual sense must treat, not of natural things, but of spiritual ; 
not of things relating to the body of man and his transitory life, 



28 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

but to his soul and life eternal : And we ought to conclude further, 
that although the historical circumstances detailed in the literal 
sense are in general substantially true, having occurred as they are 
related, yet if there are any of them that are in any respect contra- 
dictory, the reason must be, not because the narrative is not 
divinely inspired, but because, the letter has been forced, in such 
instances, to bend a little, as it were, under the weight of the im- 
portant matters contained within it, to express which more fully, a 
slight turn has been given to the literal narration. Nor is there, 
in this supposition, the smallest degree of inconsistency. For 
every composition, either human or divine, must be judged of, ac- 
cording as it is adapted to express the Design of the Author. But 
a revelation from God cannot be designed to improve us in natural 
knowledge, but in heavenly or spiritual. If then the literal sense 
of the Holy Word is so adjusted, as to be a proper vehicle for the 
divine realities of a spiritual kind with which it is inwardly replen- 
ished, then it answers the Design for which it was given, whether 
the literal expression, regarded by itself, be in all respects perfectly 
coherent or not ; — whether the historical occurrences, respecting 
which, regarded by themselves, it is no part of the Divine Author's 
plan to communicate information, are detailed with all possible 
clearness or not. In short, if the Design for which a revelation 
from God must be given, had been steadily kept in view, and the 
outward expression had been judged of accordingly, it would have 
been seen that the Word of God does, in every part, contain a 
spiritual sense, which treats solely of the Lord, his kingdom, man's 
soul, and his improvement in heavenly graces, and that the literal 
sense is constructed purely in subserviency to the spiritual : and 
then the objections against its divine inspiration would never have 
been raised, or, if they had, would soon have obtained a completely 
satisfactory answer. To evince that this is its true character, will 
be the main object of this and our subsequent Lectures. 

I. The first thin^ necessary to the clearing up of this argument, 
is, to ascertain, what is the kind of inspiration which the Scripture* 
claim for themselves. 

Here then the fact, that the title, " the Word of God," is 
claimed by the Scriptures for themselves, is alone sufficient to 
satisfy us, that they assume to have been written 1>v a plenary 



II.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 29 

divine inspiration. For what can " the Word of God" be, but 
divine speech or revelation flowing from God? And if this is 
given us by the instrumentality of men, then must they, so to give 
it us, have been divinely inspired : — otherwise what they wrote 
would not be the Word of God, but the word of men, — of illumi- 
nated men, perhaps, but whose writings could convey nothing more 
than they themselves conceived and apprehended — the mere senti- 
ments of the writers. 

1. That the books of Moses claim to be the Word of God, is 
expressed by its being so repeatedly said, that " the Lord spake 
unto Moses, saying*," and also, that " Moses wrote all the words 
of the Lordf :" And whoever has looked into the writings of the 
prophets, knows how often they make the declaration, " The word 
of the Lord came unto me, saying. "J 

2. But that the title " Word of God" is properly applied to the 
Sacred Scriptures, is evinced by the use of the expression by the 
Lord Jesus Christ himself. Speaking of the law written by Moses, 
he first observes, " For Moses said, Honour thy father and mother : 
and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die ihe death:" and 
then he adds, "But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or his 
mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou 
mightest be profited by me, he shall be free ; and ye suffer him no 
more to do ought for his father or his mother ; making the Word 
of God of none effect through your tradition."* Thus we see that 
the Scriptures of the Old Testament, which we may be sure do not 
rank higher than those of the New, are denominated, by the 
highest authority, " the Word of God :" of course they must have 
been given by a plenary divine inspiration. 

The same expression is used again, and the idea conveyed by it 
affirmed of all that is properly called " the Scripture," in another 
debate of the Lord Jesus Christ with the Jews. When they were 
about to stone him for having said, " I and the Father are One," 
he reasoned with them thus : " Is it not written in your law, I said, 
Ye are gods ? If he called them gods to whom the Word of God 
tame, — and the Scripture cannot be broken, — say ye of himf," &c. 
Here, not only is the revelation communicated to the Jews called 

* See almost every Chapter in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. 
f Exod. xxiv. 4. % See the Prophets throughout. 

* Mark vii. 10 to 13. f John x. 34, 35. 



30 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

by its real Author, " the Word of God," but it is authoritatively 
declared, that " the Scripture cannot be broken ;" where the word 
"broken" is admitted by the Commentators to be idiomatic, the 
meaning being, that the Scripture is not to be contradicted or 
denied, — that its authority is not to be infringed. The purport of 
the clause, then, paraphrased into familiar language, is clearly 
this : " If he called them gods to whom the Word of God came— 
and this you cannot deny, because the authority of the Scriptures is 
unimpeachable, — say ye of him," &c. Thus then the revelation 
given to the Jews is recognized by " the Word made flesh," as the 
Word of God; and the attributes of that Word are assigned to 
what is emphatically called the Scripture, which is declared, on 
this ground, to be, what no partially inspired composition can be, 
absolutely infallible, — an authority which, on no pretence what- 
ever, is to be impugned. The same sanction, conveyed by the same 
expression, is given by Jesus Christ to " the law and the prophets," 
or to the whole of the ancient Scriptures, when he says, after 
referring to them, "Whosoever therefore shall break one of the 
least of these commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be 
called the least in the kingdom of heaven."* Here, to break one 
of the least of the commandments of the law and the prophets, 
does not mean merely to live in the neglect of it, but to weaken its 
authority : the word in the original is the same as in the passage 
just quoted from John, and means literally to loosen, or dissolve, 
that is, to take away Us obligation. The unlawfulness of this, we 
find, in regard to the least of the commandments of all the law and 
the prophets, Jesus Christ most decidedly affirms : what then are 
we to think of those who tell us, that " it is not to be supposed 
that they [meaning Moses and the prophets,] were even thus in- 
spired [meaning, even according to the lowest notions of inspira- 
tion,] in every fact which they related, or in every precept which 
they delivered." Did not Bishop Tomlinef see, when he penned 
these awful words, that he was herein " loosing," or destroying the 
authority of, at any rate, some of "the least of the commandments," 
and was thus setting his authority in opposition to the authority 
of Jesus Christ, who so solemnly recognizes the whole as to the 
immovable Word of God. 

3. But perhaps it may be objected, that the title, "Word of 
* Matt. v. 19. f Bishop of Winchester, see p 6. — H. 



II.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 31 

God," is nevertheless only applicable to such parts of the Scrip- 
tures as contain precepts expressly delivered in the name of God. 
We do not, however, find that Jesus Christ makes any such dis- 
tinction; so that we have divine authority for denying that any 
such distinction exists. Besides, what a door for uncertainty would 
this throw open ! If the writers who recorded those precepts which 
they deliver in the name of God, were not inspired throughout, they 
might as easily err in this part of their duty as in any other ; and 
thus it would be impossible for us to know whether what they de- 
livered as divine precepts were really such or not. However, we 
are not left to decide this question by our own reasonings ; for, in 
addition to the unlimiting declarations of Jesus Christ, the Apostle 
Paul gives us the strongest assurance we can possibly require, as 
to the entire inspiration of the whole. He says, "All Scripture 
is given by inspiration of God*:" And it is here to be noted, 
that the five words, " given by inspiration of God," have but one 
word peonvewrros], answering to them in the original; and that 
is one so expressive, that it conveys all that our translators have 
stated, with that addition of force which results from condensation. 
A single word might be framed in English to convey the same 
meaning, but it would sound harsh, as being unusual : We however 
might say, "All scripture is God-breathed " which indeed is just 
the same in sense as " given by inspiration of God ;" only the word 
"inspiration," being derived from a Latin, and not an English 
root, does not convey to English ears the primary meaning that 
belongs to it, which is that of breathing-in. Nothing then can be 
more conclusive than this passage for the full inspiration of the 
whole of the Word of God. All Scripture was inspired, or breathed- 
into the writers, by God,— -was the result of a divine afflatus, which 
took such entire possession of the inspired penmen, that it was not 
they who wrote, further than as to the mere motion of the fingers, 
but God himself who wrote with their hands. This is what is in- 
cluded in the idea of " Inspiration of God ;" and to restrict it to 
any thing short of this, is to charge the Apostle with having spoken 
at random, without understanding the meaning of his language. 

Paul however does not stand alone in this testimony. He is 
supported in it by Peter, who affirms the same doctrine, though in 
quite different terms. " Prophecy," says he, " came not in old 
* 2 Tim. iii. 16. 



32 PLENAEY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as tliey were 
moved by the Holy Ghost."* It is here to be remembered, that the 
Jews called the writers of the historical books "prophets," as 
well as those of what we call the prophetical books ; as is known 
to every one who has seen a Hebrew bible. Now of all these holy 
men, the Apostle affirms, that they spake, not by the will of man, 
but as they were moved by the Holy Ghost: clearly excluding 
their own will, and of course their own understanding, from any 
concern in the matter. And here also it will be useful to attend 
to the force of the principal original word. The Greek term 
[<j>epo[j.€vot] translated "moved," is one that conveys a much stronger 
idea than that of the gentle sort of impression to which we apply 
the term " moved :" It means carried away, — rapt, — transported; 
— taken altogether out of themselves, and possessed entirely by the 
power of God. So positive is the language of the heaven- taught 
writers on the subject of divine inspiration ; and so decisive is the 
testimony which they bear to the plenary inspiration of the Sacred 
Scriptures. 

Such being the strength and unequivocal nature of the expres- 
sions in which the inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures is affirmed 
by infallible authority, it really seems extraordinary how they who 
undertake to explain the divine books, should ever have thought of 
limiting their inspiration to so low a degree of it, as is unworthy 
of the name altogether : and it can only be accounted for by the 
reason before assigned ; that being pressed by the Deist with the 
difficulties which some passages present, and not reflecting that 
these should lead to a higher mode of interpretation, the Christian 
advocates' have seen no way of maintaining the general credibility 
of the sacred penmen, but by allowing their liability to little mis- 
takes. It would however be but a sorry expedient for the preser- 
vation of a country situated like Holland, when threatened with an 
inundation from the fury of the ocean, should they who have the 
care of the dykes, fearing lest these should be washed away, pur- 
posely make a gap in them, as a means of averting the destructive 
effects of the waves: here, every one sees, that the country, though 
in a more gradual manner, would equally be drowned ; but the 
dykes, though no longer of any use, might possibly be preserved. 
By admitting only such an inspiration as does not exclude falli- 
* 2 Ep. i. 21. 



II.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 33 

bility, religious establishments may perhaps for a time be pre- 
served: but the objects for which they were instituted will be 
undermined and subverted. Infidelity will be confirmed and ex- 
tended ; and the Faith that remains, being emptied of its spiritu- 
ality, will differ from infidelity in little but in name. Eeligion will 
degenerate into a cold morality, which Deism may supply almost 
as well. 

4. Such laxity, however, did not characterize the sentiments of 
former times. Though now it is otherwise, the general belief once 
was, that inspiration really is inspiration; and they who wrote 
upon it, did not attempt to define the thing, to be something en- 
tirely different from what is expressed by the name. This might 
be proved by copious evidence, if necessary ; but it will be quite 
sufficient here to give the statements of Bishop Marsh*, in the 
Notes to the third Chapter of his translation of Michaelis; for 
though he had such low ideas of the nature of inspiration, at least 
as far as regards the inspiration of the Evangelists, when he formed 
his singular theory of the origin of the three first gospels, he seems, 
when he translated the first part of the Work just mentioned, which 
was several years previously, to have been inclined to favour the 
higher views of the subject ; at least, he had, and has, too much 
integrity to keep them out of sight. He there, complaining of his 
Author for not himself giving a definition of Inspiration, says, that 
" some understand an inspiration of words, as well as ideas, others 
of ideas alone ; a third class understand by inspiration an inter- 
vention of the Deity, by which the natural faculties of the sacred 
writers were directed to the discovery of truth ; and a fourth class 
assume a kind of negative intervention, by which they were pre- 
vented from falling into material error ; some again assume a total 
inspiration, declaring that the supernatural influence of the Deity 
was extended to the most minute historical accounts, while others 
suppose that it was confined to certain parts of Scripture." And, 
as the authorities for the opinion, that inspiration extends both to 
words and ideas, he gives " most of the German divines of the 
last [or seventeenth] century, and many in the present" [the eigh- 
teenth — for this was written in 1793.] The Author whom he 
translates, — Michaelis, — seems very unsettled in his own mind, 
both respecting what he shoidd determine inspiration to be, and 
* Bishop of Peterborough, author of a Systematic Theology. — H. 

*2* 



34 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

what books in the Bible he should regard as possessing it ; it ap- 
pears, however, that where it exists at all, he thought it must be 
plenary, applying to this subject a passage of Paul, which in our 
translation stands thus : " We speak not in words which man's 
wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing 
natural things with spiritual*:" which declaration he renders 
thus : " We deliver doctrines in words taught by the Holy Ghost, 
explaining inspired things with inspired words." I do not quote 
this version by Michaelis as adopting it, or as accepting his appli- 
cation, in the context, of the doctrine he appears to mean to deduce 
from it ; but only as evidence of what this great scholar's opinion 
of inspiration really was : Hereupon Bishop Marsh justly remarks, 
" It seems then, that he understands a verbal inspiration, agreeably 
to the sentiments of many ancient Fathers, and many modern divines, 
who have considered the Apostles and Evangelists merely as passive 
instruments. It is true," the Bishop adds, (and we shall consider 
the sentiment in the sequel,) " that this hypothesis renders it diffi- 
cult to account for the great variety of style observable in the Greek 
Testament : on the other hand, several writers, especially Ernesti, 
contend, that it is difficult to abstract an inspiration of ideas from 
an inspiration of words." Assuredly, it is difficult : and this 
avowal from the celebrated Ernesti, will perhaps be felt as the more 
valuable, when it is remembered, that he was by no means unin- 
fected, on some points, with the lax principles of the moderns ; so 
that his testimony in favour of plenary inspiration, must be consi- 
dered as drawn from him by the unassisted force of truth. I will 
only add further upon this question, that what the sentiments of 
profoundly learned British divines formerly were respecting it, is 
sufficiently indicated in the maxim adopted by Pococke, and pre- 
fixed as a motto to the Notes Miscellanea, appended to his Porta 
Mosis of Maimonides : it is this : " There is not in the Law or 
Holy Scripture a single letter, on which matters of the greatest 
importance [in the Hebrew, great mountains,] are not dependent." f 
These testimonies, I trust, will be sufficient to shew, that many 
writers, and those of the highest authority, have heretofore believed, 
that when Jesus Christ terms the Scripture the Word of God, and 
declares that it must not be broken, or its authority impeached j 
* l Cor. iv. 13. 
.m onSn wh)ii onnn yxv nn« ni« tVsk irons r** t 



II.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 35 

and when the Apostles assure us that it is given by inspiration of 
God, and that those who wrote it were carried out of themselves 
by the Divine Spirit that possessed them ; they really mean what 
they say : — those, therefore, who may now be disposed to believe 
that they mean what they say, will find a cloud of witnesses to 
support them. It is true, that, at present, the fashion of the times 
runs the other way ; but it is not a new thing for heaven and the 
world to stand in opposition : and, on this point, the authorities 
are sufficiently great and numerous to render the profession of 
the truth honourable in the eyes of men, as well as in the sight of 
God. 

This question, respecting the nature of the inspiration which the 
Scriptures claim for themselves, though of the greatest moment to 
the Christian, will be little regarded by the Deist : it was, however, 
necessary to consider it, because we shall find it pregnant with con- 
sequences, in which the Deist also is deeply interested. 

IL It being then certain, that the Scriptures claim to be " the 
Word of God," according to the full meaning of that weighty ex- 
pression; and it being likewise time that many of the greatest 
Biblical scholars deemed the claim thus made by the Scriptures 
too positive to be evaded, so that we must as much believe them, 
when they assert their own plenary inspiration, as when they assert 
any thing else : we beg to be allowed to assume, for the present, 
for argument's sake, that they really are the Word of God : and 
with this admission, we proceed to offer proofs, from rational and 
philosophical grounds, that, if so, they must contain stores of wis- 
dom in their bosom, independently of any thing that appears on 
their surface. 

If the Bible could, throughout, be understood, and would, in 
every part, afford a clear, intelligible, and instructive meaning, by 
consulting the literal or grammatical sense of the words and 
phrases alone; or if by thus restricting our researches after its 
meaning, we could always obtain as clear a one as is to be drawn 
from the works of uninspired writers ; there would then be more 
reason (but by no means sufficient) for contending, that it never 
was meant to contain any thing more : but when we find in it pas- 
sages, to which, unless we allow them an internal sense, we must 
deny any intelligible sense at all ; — we surely must reject the notion, 



36 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

that the literal sense is all that is intended, — a notion so derogatory 
to the divine inspiration of the Sacred Writings, and which, if suf- 
fered to regulate our views of them entirely, would compel us to 
think less highly of the Word of God, than we do of many of the 
compositions of men. However, I do not mean to beg the ques- 
tion, but to shew that the possession of stores of hidden wisdom, 
is not only necessary to vindicate for the Scriptures their title of 
the Word of God, but is an inseparable characteristic of every Di- 
vine Composition ; that without it, no writing whatever, were its 
outward form just what the sceptic would require, (would he define 
what that is,) can be entitled to that appellation. 

Who then does not see, that the difference between Compositions 
that are really the Word of God and the compositions of men, must 
be as great, as between the works of God and the works of men ? 
And wherein does the latter difference most remarkably consist ? 
Is it not in the interior organization which the works of God pos- 
sess, beyond what appears in their outward form ? When we look 
at a picture or a statue, which are among the most exquisite pro- 
ductions of human ingenuity, after we have seen the surface, we 
have seen the whole : and although there are pieces of curious me- 
chanism which contain a complication of parts within their outside 
case, this only carries us one step farther : when we look at any 
of the parts, we see the whole ; — the interior texture of the material 
of which they are composed not being the work of the human artist, 
but of the Divine Creator. Whereas, when we look at any of the 
works of his omnipotent hand, beautiful and exact as they are in 
their outward form, still the most beautiful and wonderful parts of 
them are within. Some of these hidden wonders are discoverable 
to the diligent inquirer by means of dissections and by the aid of 
glasses : but when the most ingenious investigator has extended 
his researches into the interior construction of any natural produc- 
tion to the utmost limits that human means can conduct him, he 
vrust, if he is a wise man, be convinced, that what he has thus 
discovered, is, after all, but general and superficial, compared with 
with the greater wonders which still lie concealed within. The 
most expert anatomist never, for instance, reached the seat of the 
soul, — still less the principle of consciousness and life of which the 
soul itself is merely the organ ; all which, and even the material 
forms which are their first envelopes, still lie beyond the most sub- 



II.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 37 

tile forms that the gross observation of the senses can discover. 
The farther, however, the observation of the senses can extend, the 
greater are the wonders which appear. Just so it is with the 
Word of God : and so it must be, if it has in reality God for its 
Author. 

An attention to one or two more unquestionable truths, will 
make this fact more evident; and will discover to us with the utmost 
certainty, what must be the character of a composition that is 
rightly named " the Word of God." 

God, we know, is a Being Infinite and Eternal. He made the 
world, and all things in it ; gifting, in particular, every living 
object with faculties suited to its nature, or to the use it is de- 
signed to perform in the grand whole. But although every thing 
in nature plainly bespeaks its Divine Author, he has not, in any 
part of nature, a visible existence. His immediate, personal resi- 
dence, is far above the sphere of this world, or of the universe, of 
nature, — yea, above that of the worlds of spirit, the abodes of 
angelic beings : " for behold, even the heavens, and the heaven of 
heavens, cannot contain Him :" — much less this gross, material 
world, the lowest sphere of his divine activities. 

Now man, while he is an inhabitant of this natural world, enjoys 
the gift of speech : and there can be no doubt that he will retain 
this valuable endowment when he departs hence, to move in a 
higher sphere of existence. Indeed, there can no doubt that this 
faculty must be enjoyed, in some mode or other, by all orders of 
intelligent creatures, from man on earth to the angels of the highest 
heavens, and even up to the Creator himself, from whom finite 
intelligences receive it. But as the personal forms of angelic beings 
are not visible to the corporeal eye of man in the world, so neither 
is their oral language audible to his bodily ear. Hence the Apostle 
Paul informs the Corinthians, that when he was caught up, as to 
his spirit, to the third heaven, he heard there " unspeakable words, 
such as it is not possible" (according to the marginal reading of 
our bibles, which is allowed to give the true meaning which the 
original word bears in this place ; — such as it is not possible) " for 
nan to utter." There cannot be a plainer testimony to the dif- 
ference between spiritual and natural speech or language. While 
the Apostle was in heaven and in company with the angels there, 
and was thus, for the time, in a state similar to theirs ; he heard 



38 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

and understood their discourse, and possibly took a share in it: but 
when he returned into his natural state, as an inhabitant of the 
natural world, though no doubt he retained some of the general 
instruction which was communicated in the angelic discourse, as to 
the ideas, he found he could recollect nothing of the words in 
which it was conveyed to him, but only the conviction, that, by 
natural organs, they were altogether ineffable. 

If then the words of angels are such as are unspeakable to man; 
what must the words of God be> as they proceed immediately from 
himself? Doubtless, they must be far above either the hearing or 
the comprehension of any finite being; and they must be im- 
mensely, indeed, beyond the hearing or the comprehension of the 
inhabitants of the natural world. Before they could become appre- 
hensible to them, they must pass through the spheres inhabited by 
the higher orders of intelligent creatures, who would hear them in 
their own spiritual language. For the Divine Being to speak, im- 
mediately from his own mouth, in natural language, must be as 
impossible, as it is for him to appear, in all the glory of his Divine 
Person, before the natural eye. Consequently, if the Word of 
God, as we have it, in natural language, is really his Word, its 
literal sense must be a covering, with which it is invested to adapt 
it to the apprhension of the inhabitants of the natural world ; and 
the essentially divine speech must lie concealed far within. And 
as between the immediate personal residence of Deity and outward 
nature, must be arranged the abodes of all intermediate intelli- 
gences ; so between the immediate divine speech of the Lord and 
the natural expressions into which it falls when it descends into the 
domains of nature, must be distinct forms of Divine Truth, adapted 
to the apprehension of all orders of angelic beings. 

But to resume the analogy between the Word of God and hi9 
works. From all that has been advanced it may be seen, that to 
suppose the literal sense of the Word of God, (upon the assumption 
that it is rightly so named,) to be all that it contains, because 
nothing more is obvious to a superficial inspection, is just as 
reasonable as to affirm, that the human body consists of nothing 
but skin, because this is all that meets the unassisted eye : but as 
the researches of anatomists have assured us, that within the skin 
which covers our frame there are innumerable forms of use and 
beauty, each of which consists again of innumerable vessels and 



II.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 39 

fibres ; whilst, after science has carried her discoveries to the 
utmost, the principle that imparts life to the whole still elndes the 
search : so the letter of the Holy Word, which may be regarded as 
its skin, includes within it innumerable spiritual truths, adapted 
in some measure to the apprehension of spiritually-minded men, 
but more completely to the intellects of purely spiritual beings ; 
whilst the Essential Divine Wisdom which gives life to the whole, 
is beyond the comprehension of the highest finite intelligence, and 
can only be known to its Infinite Original. And such must be the 
character of the whole of the Word of God, — as well of those pas- 
sages which afford a clear, instructive sense in the letter, as of 
those which do not : for the Word of God, to be truly so, must be 
like itself throughout, and must every where be composed upon 
one uniform principle. Every mind that reflects deeply upon the 
subject, will, I am persuaded, see, that to deny the Holy Word to 
possess such contents as we have described, is equivalent to 
denying it to have God for its author. It makes it nothing more 
than the work of men ;— of men pious, perhaps, and enlightened, 
but still finite and fallible. 

Such then are the views to which even reason, fairly consulted, 
would lead us, when we inquire, what must be the nature of a com- 
position, which is, really and truly, the Word of God : We must 
now then proceed to inquire, how far these agree with the views 
which are presented by the Writings which take that title, on the 
subject of their own nature. 

III. We continually find the Holy Word itself, in its very letter, 
directing the reader to elevate his mind above the merely literal 
expression, — above the natural ideas and images which compose its 
outward language, — and to explore the deep and truly divine 
wisdom that is contained within ; thus the very letter repeatedly 
assures us, that the Word of God contains stores of wisdom in its 
bosom, independently of any thing that appears on the surface. 
This testimony it bears to itself in all its parts, — in the books of 
the Old Testament, in the discourses of the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
in the writings of the Apostles. 

Many plain intimations are afforded by the writers of the Old 
Testament ; but I will just notice one or two in the Psalms alone. 

1. What can be meant by that passage in which the Psalmist 



40 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

prays, " Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things 
out of thy law ?"* Is not this a plain declaration, that the Law 
or Word of God does contain within it wonderful things, which 
cannot be discerned unless the eyes of the mind, or the intellectual 
faculties, be opened to discern them ? — thus, things which do not 
appear immediately on the surface, but lie stored up within ? And 
that these wonderful things, or divine mysteries, are not only con- 
tained in those parts which give outward indications of it, by 
the obscurity and evidently mystical character of the language in 
which they are expressed, but in those parts likewise where the 
letter is perfectly plain and simple, is openly declared in the 
78th Psalm, which begins with these words: " Give ear, my 
people, to my law, incline your ears to the words of my mouth. 
I will open my mouth in a parable, I will utter dark sayings of 
old." Now nothing can appear more extraordinary, to those who 
think of nothing further, when they read the Scriptures, than what 
appears upon the face of them, than to find such a declaration as 
this prefixed to such a composition as follows. When the writer 
has declared in so solemn a manner, that he is about to open his 
mouth in a parable, to utter dark sayings of old, the reader is 
naturally led to expect, in the continuation of the Psalm, a series of 
mysterious language, containing an enigma in every word. But 
what does follow ? Nothing, whatever, but a very plain abridg- 
ment of the history of the Israelites, from their departure out of 
Egypt to the reign of David, couched in language that is not even 
elevated by poetical figures, but appears to be the natural style of 
sober matter of fact. Can there then be a plainer declaration than 
this, that the whole of the Israel itish history has a parabolic 
meaning, — that the language in which this history is given, plain 
and simple as it appears, is in reality a series of dark sayings ? 
Every sentence of a composition written in the style of this Psalm, 
tvhich, making allowance for the metrical arrangement, is similar 
to that of the historical parts of Scripture in general, is, in fact, 
more dark, in proportion as it outwardly appears more plain. The 
hidden spiritual meaning is, in reality, rendered more recondite, 
by the plainuess of the literal historical meaning, the simplicity 
of which tends to chain the attention to the narrative of facts, and 
to prevent it from looking for any thing beyond. Let any person 
* Ps. cxix. IS. 



II.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 41 

read this Psalm, one of the plainest, in its literal sense, in the 
whole book, and remember at the same time that the inspired 
writer is throughout speaking parables, — uttering dark sayings ; — 
and he must confess that every literal expression here contains a 
hidden meaning ; and, of course, that it is at least highly probable, 
that the case is the same throughout the Holy Word. 

We find then from this testimony of David, that such is the 
character of the law of Moses, and of the historical narratives of 
the Old Testament; — it will therefore be more easily admitted, that 
such must be the character of the prophetical books also. We 
proceed then to consider the evidence of the New Testament 
on the subject; and we will begin with that of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

2. Were we to adduce all the testimony which is afforded in the 
discourses of the Lord Jesus Christ to the spiritual nature of the 
Scriptures, we should find ample matter for a Lecture by itself ; 
wherefore we must confine ourselves to a few instances. 

One very strong testimony, but the force of which might be 
overlooked by a reader who does not consider the purport of the 
chief expressions, is given by Him when he says, " Think not that 
I am come to destroy the law and the prophets : I am not come to 
destroy, but to fulfil." * Some have found it difficult to reconcile 
this declaration with the fact, that the greater part of the Mosaic 
law actually was abolished by the establishment of Christianity, the 
observance of it not being enjoined on Christians, and the power 
of observing it being taken away even from the Jews, by the de- 
struction of their city and temple, where alone the chief of the 
ceremonies could be performed. It is indeed said, and with truth, 
that the whole of the ceremonial law was fulfilled by Jesus Christ 
in his own person : but this does not account for the abolition of 
it afterwards : otherwise we must suppose the moral law, which he 
fulfilled likewise, to be abolished also : and this has never been 
asserted by any but the wildest Antinomian perverters of Divine 
Truth. It is besides evident, that he is not here speaking of what 
was done in his own person, bat of what would be the effect of his 
doctrine, or of the illumination of the human mind which he came 
to impart. When therefore Jesus Christ declares, that he came to 
fulfil the law and the prophets, he means that he came to prevent 
* Matt. v. 17. 



42 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

them from being any longer regarded merely as to their surface or 
shell ; to bring to light the divine things with which they are in- 
wardly filled ; and to establish a church which should be in the 
exercise of that spiritual worship, of which the carnal worship of 
the ceremonial law was a figure or type. The word " fulfil," being 
now no longer used except in its secondary senses, which are, '" to 
answer a prophecy or promise by performance," — " to answer a 
desire by compliance," — "to answer a law by obedience;" — the 
English reader of the New Testament is apt to forget its primitive 
meaning, which is, to fill fall, — " to fill till there is no room for 
more*;" — which also is the primitive and proper meaning of the 
Greek word [ir\ypou>] for which it is used : to fulfil the law, is then 
to fill it full; — and this is, to discover the substance of which the 
ceremonies were shadows, and the inward principles from which 
the outward acts, even of the moral law, must be performed. The 
Divine Speaker immediately proceeds to illustrate his meaning by 
examples. After referring to the Mosaic prohibitions of murder 
and adultery, he proceeds to forbid all uncharitable sentiments and 
unclean thoughts ; and after referring to the Mosaic law of retalia- 
tion, he inculcates the most unbounded forbearance and forgiveness: 
by which he instructs us, that those precepts of the ancient law 
convey much more than the letter expresses ; that under the pro- 
hibition of murder, every degree of hostile feeling is interdicted ; 
that the prohibition of adultery extends to every species of unclean- 
ness ; and that the law of retaliation is a representative appointment 
only, exhibiting an immutable arrangement of the Divine Order in 
the government of the universe, which is such, that no evil can be 
practised or intended, without falling eventually upon the contriver; 
but that this law is reserved, as to its execution, to the Unerring 
Judge alone ; and is not meant to be that by which man is to re- 
gulate his conduct towards his trespassing brother. These then 
are examples by which Jesus Christ shews, how, in the dispensation 
which he came to institute, the law was to be fulfilled ; in " the 
newness of the spirit, not in the oldness of the letterf :" by intro- 
ducing into the outward observance of the moral code the inward 
spirit and life ; and by substituting for the ceremonial observances 
those vital graces of which they were the types. It was thus that 
the righteousness of the disciples of Jesus Christ was to exceed the 
* Johnson. f R° m ' v "* & 



II.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 43 

righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, who thought of nothing 
further than an outward obedience. 

There are however other instances, in which Jesus Christ still 
more plainly refers to the divine wisdom included within the veil 
of the letter of the Holy Word. What a remarkable statement is 
that, where it is said, after his resurrection, when he discovered 
himself to his disciples, " Then opened he their understandings, 
that they might understand the Scriptures !"* Is it not plain 
from this, that the Scriptures contain a hidden meaning, not expli- 
citly discovered in the letter, which cannot be understood unless 
the understanding be opened to perceive it ? Thus this statement 
is a counterpart of the prayer of the Psalmist before adverted to ; 
" Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of 
thy law : " and both together illustrate that saying of Jesus Christ, 
" Verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men 
have desired to see the things which ye see, and have not seen them, 
and to hear the things which ye hear, and have not heard themf :" 
words which imply, that even the sincere lovers of truth, who lived 
under the Jewish dispensation, in which divine things were either 
enigmatically expressed in the Sacred Writings, or darkly shadowed 
out in the symbolic rites, could not have that clear understanding 
and perception of heavenly mysteries, which were brought to light 
by the coming of the Lord, and by that new illumination of the 
understanding which he then afforded. 

This plain distinction between the outward language in which 
divine Truth is conveyed, and the divine wisdom which is included 
within it, is what is intended by the Lord Jesus Christ, in that 
otherwise unintelligible question and answer, which he proposes 
and gives, respecting the obstinacy and blindness of the Jews. He 
says to them, " Why do ye not understand my speech ? " and he 
answers the question by adding, " Even because ye cannot hear my 
word." % Here he makes a plain distinction between his speech 
and his word. To a superficial reader the two expressions may 
appear synonymous : but to suppose that they are so, is not only 
to impute the most insipid tautology to the Divine Speaker, but -the 
most palpable no-meaning : for the whole sense of the declaration 
is concentrated in the difference which is pointed to between his 
" speech" and his " word." Understand by his " speech" the out- 

* Luke xxiv. 45. \ Matt. xiii. 17. % John viii. 43. 



44 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

ward expression and literal sense of his divine communications, and 
by his " word," the pure truth which is concealed within ; and the 
sense of the declaration at once appears, and is found to be 
most weighty and important; nor can any other interpretation 
render it worthy of the Author. Here then we are clearly taught 
this most momentous truth : that unless the hidden wisdom of the 
Lord's divine communications be acknowledged and attended to, 
the outward expression of them will never be understood. 

We will quote only one more testimony from the immediate lips 
of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the sixth chapter of John he holds 
a long discourse with the cavilling Jews, couched entirely in those 
dark sayings which so generally constitute the letter of the Holy 
Word. He tells them, that He is the living bread which came 
down from heaven, of which if a man eat he shall live for ever ; to 
which he adds, " And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which 
I will give for the life of the world."* This puzzled the Jews 
extremely, and they " strove among themselves, saying, How can 
this man give us his flesh to eat?" Jesus, however, enforced his 
assertion, and " said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, 
Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye 
have no life in you:" which affirmation he dwelt upon at some 
length. f This confounded even many of his disciples, and they 
said, "This is a hard saying : who can hear it J?" meaning, Who 
can understand and receive such a paradox as this? But it is 
added, " When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured 
at it, He said, Doth this offend you ? What and if ye shall see 
the Son of Man ascend up where he was before?" And he sub- 
joins, as a key to the mystery, " It is the spirit that quickeneth ; 
the flesh profiteth nothing : the words that I speak unto you, they 
are spirit, and they are life." § How is it possible to state more 
decidedly, that it is the spiritual meaning of divine language which 
is to be looked for, and that we are not to abide in the gross, carnal 
interpretation ? And how plainly are we hereby instructed, that 
the difficulties which stagger and offend many, when they look at 
the mere outward covering, or " flesh" of the Divine Word, would 
disappear, could they raise their ideas to a perception of its " spirit" 
and its "life!" 

It is clear enough then, from these declarations, what is the 
* Ver. 51. t Ver. 52 to 58. $ Ver. 60. § Ver. 61, 62, 63. 



II.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 45 

nature of the words of Jesus Christ ; and also what is the nature 
of the whole Word of God, if it really is the " Word of God," God- 
breathed — " given by inspiration of God : " viz. that it every where 
contains much more than meets the eye or ear. We are now to 
see how far the Apostles bear a similar testimony. 

3. Not then to dwell upon that passage of Paul, in which he 
says, that "the letter killeth, the spirit giveth life*;" although 
this might be shewn to be strong to our purpose ; we will advert 
to a few of the numerous instances in which this Apostle directs 
the attention of his readers to the spiritual signification of the 
Scriptures of the Old Testament — those of the New being not then 
written ; or such of them as were written not generally known. 

Speaking of the pilgrimage of the children of Israel in the wil- 
derness, the Apostle states, that " they did all eat of the same spi- 
ritual meat, and did all drink of the same spiritual drink : for they 
drank of the spiritual rock that followed them ; and that rock was 
Christ." "f Here we are evidently taught, that something more 
was conveyed by the manna which was given them from heaven, 
and the water that was produced for them from the rock, than 
merely natural food and drink for the support of the body ; as also, 
that the rock itself, out of which the water was obtained, was re- 
presentative of the Rock of Ages : for that the rock in Horeb was 
not literally Christ, is sufficiently evident : yet the Apostle says, 
" and that rock was Christ : " he must mean then, that it was a 
representation, figure, emblem, or type of Christ, who alone, a3 
being " the Truth J," and "the Word§," can refresh the fainting 
soul with streams of "living water ||," which is an emblem of pure 
Truth, communicated by the Word, from Himself ! 

The same Apostle gives a spiritual meaning of so apparently 
plain a history as that of Abraham, his wife and concubine, and 
their sons, Isaac and Ishmael. "It is written," he observes, 
" that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond-maid, the other 
by a free woman : but he who was of the bond-woman was born 
after the flesh ; but he of the free woman by promise. Which 
things," he continues, " are an allegory : " and he accordingly ex- 
plains them, as being emblematical of the Israelitish and Christian 
dispensations.^" Now if this plain narrative contains an allegorical 

* 2 Cor. iii. 6. f 1 Cor. x. 34. % John xiv. 6. § John i. 1. 

U John iv. 10, vii. 38, % Galatians iv. 22, to end. 



46 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [lECT. 

or inward meaning besides its literal or ontward sense, what reason 
can be given for doubting, that the whole of the historical relations 
of the Divine Word do the same ? If Isaac, from his birth, was a 
type of the Christian Dispensation in general, may we not conclude, 
that the nation descending from him represented, in their history, 
all the particulars of the same ? or, what is substantially the same 
thing, all the spiritual things belonging to the Lord's true Church 
under every dispensation ? This, we have already seen, is taught 
us by David ; and we shall see in the sequel, that there is abun- 
dantly more scriptural evidence of the same great truth. 

But we have not yet done with the testimony of Paul, who in- 
culcates this fact more explicitly still, because more generally, 
when he says, "He is not a Jew which is one outwardly ; neither 
is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh : but he is a Jew 
which is one inwardly ; and circumcision is that of the heart, in 
the spirit, and not in the letter."* In these words we are clearly 
instructed, that when the Jews are mentioned in Scripture, we are 
to understand, not merely the descendants of the man named 
Judah, or the inhabitants of the country called Judaea, but the 
member of the Lord's true church, under whatever dispensation ; 
and that the initiatory rite of Judaism was representative of the 
purification of the heart and its affections ; as is also plainly de- 
clared by Moses him self, f 

Of the nature of the Mosaic writings, the Apostle gives us 
several more examples in the Epistle to the Hebrews. "With what 
force of argument does he demonstrate, that Melchizedeck was a 
type of the Lord Jesus Christ ! % So, how positively does he assert 
the typical nature of all the ceremonial institutions ! Thus, 
speaking of the priests, and of the gifts which they offered accord- 
ing to the law, he says, that thay "serve unto the example'* 
[uiro5ej7jua — properly, according to Schleusner, that which presents 
something visible to the sight] "and shadow of heavenly things:" 
which interpretation he confirms by adding, " as Moses was admo- 
nished of God, when he was about to make the tabernacle ; for, 
See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern 
[twtos] shewed to thee in the mount. § Soon after, taking up more 

* Rom. ii. 28, 29 f Deut. x. 16 ; xxx. 6. J Chs v. and vii. 

§ Heb. viii. 5. It is necessary to remark, that the words rxrrros in this 
passage, and aurvrxmos in that to be noticed immediately, have meanings 



II.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 47 

particularly the subject of the tabernacle constructed by Moses, he 
affirms, that it " was a figure for the time then present* :" and 
he presently calls the rituals of the tabernacle worship " the pat- 
terns [inroSery/taTo] of things in the heavens," and speaks of them 
in contrast with " the heavenly things themselvesf ;" immediately 
adding, that " the holy places made with hands, are the figures 
[amrirwraj of the true. "J Agreeably to this view of the Mosaic 
rituals, he speaks of "the law" as "having a shadow of good 
things to come, and not the very image of the things § :" where by 
" the image," as has been judiciously remarked, he means, what is 
respectively a substance; — a solid statue being a substance re- 
spectively to its own shadow. 

We find then that the testimony of the Apostle Paul is very 
copious and conclusive : He affirms the representative character of 
the persons mentioned in the Old Testament ; of all the particulars 
attending the celebration of the Mosaic worship ; of the history of 
the Israelites in general; and, in fact, of every thing connected with 
that people and church : and he repeatedly calls our attention from 
the mere "letter" of Scripture, to the "spirit" that resides 
within. 

The epistolary writings of the other Apostles, and the remains 
of their discourses, being small in extent, and almost entirely occu- 
pied with practical exhortations, are less explicit on this subject. 
Peter, however, plainly discovers, in two or three instances, what 

exactly the reverse of those which the "words type and antitype have acquired 
in English. With the Apostle, the type is the pattern, and the antitype is that 
which, as a copy, answers to the type : but with us, the type is the copy, and 
the antitype is the original, or pattern, of the type. This seems to have origi- 
nated in inaccurate writers confounding the Greek particle anti with the Latin 
particle ante. To bear the popular meaning, the word should be spelled 
antetype : though then it is an incongruous compound from two languages. The 
ambiguity introduced by the translators in the use of the word pattern, should 
also be noticed. In the passage above, they use it in the sense to which it is 
now fixed, — as the original from which a copy is made : but in the next quota- 
tion they use it in the sense, not of a pattern, but of a copy taken from a 
pattern. It must further be noticed, that the word avrirvTros, in the passage 
quoted below from Peter, does not mean an antitype in either of the senses 
here explained, but something that answers to another thing of the same order as 
itself; not as a copy to a pattern, or as a pattern to a copy, but as two similar 
things, of the same kind or degree, that exactly match each other. 

* Heb. ix. 9. f Heb. ix. 23. J Ver. 24. § Ch. x. 1. 



£8 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

his sentiments respecting it were. Thus, in his first sermon, he 
not only applies to the gift of the spirit, which they had just re- 
ceived, the following part of a prophecy of Joel, — " It shall come 
to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of rny spirit 
upon all flesh ; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, 
and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall 
dream dreams ; and on my servants and on my hand -maidens I will 
pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy :" — 
but he cites the remainder of Joel's predictions also, as then re* 
ceiving its accomplishment ; — " And I will shew wonders in heaven 
above, and signs in the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapour 
of smoke : the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon 
into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come."* 
Now although the words first quoted may be considered as bearing, 
in their literal sense, a relation to the effusion of the Holy Spirit 
on the day of Pentecost, it is only in a sense quite different from 
that of the letter, that the other part of the prediction was then 
fulfilled. 

The same Apostle assures us, that there is a symbolic meaning 
in the history of Noah. Having mentioned the ark, " wherein a 
few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water:" he adds, "the 
like figure [avriTimov] whereunto, even baptism, doth also now save 
us, (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer 
of a good conscience towards God,) by the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ."! Here we are expressly told, that the waters of Noah 
were as truly a figure of something spiritual, as are the waters of 
baptism, these being the fellow-type to the other : their import is 
also briefly stated. 

But not only does Peter mention particular instances in which a 
spiritual sense is contained within the letter of the Scriptures, but 
he also declares that this is the case universally, when he says, 
" We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do 
well that ye take heed, as unto a light shining in a dark place, 
until the day dawn and the day-star arise, in your hearts :" — If he 
had concluded here, he would have clearly described the fact, as it 
exists. The prophetic writings are called a light shining in a dark 
place : how beautifully does this describe the difference between 
their literal expression and the divine wisdom within it ! — the 

* Acts ii. 16 to 21. f * Pet. iii 20, 21. See Note above, p. 46. 



U.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 4$ 

liglit denoting the pure trutli of their inward meaning, and the 
dark place in which it shines the obscurity of the letter, which is 
such, that, to discover the light, devout contemplation is neces- 
sary, until it shines as the day-star in our own minds also. But 
to make the fact more' certain, and to encourage us to the study 
of the Scriptures under this view of them, the apostle adds, 
"Knowing this first; that no prophecy of the Scripture is of 
any private interpretation."* Now the Scriptures would be of 
" private interpretation," if their meaning were confined to the 
natural occurrences to which they usually refer in their letter, — if 
nothing more were intended beyond the persons and things there 
commonly mentioned. I am not unapprized of the other modes in 
which this statement has been explained ; but I am fully satisfied 
that this is the only one which comes up to the apostle's meaning. 
If regard is to be had to the context, both that which precedes and 
that which follows, as well as to the proper force of the words, the 
meaning surely must be that which is quoted by Dr. Doddridge 
from Dr. Clarke and Mr. Baxter, who understood the passage as 
if the Apostle had said, " Scripture is not to be interpreted merely 
as speaking of the particular person of whom it literally speaks ; 
but as having a further sense, to which the expressions of the 
prophets were overruled under the influence of the Spirit," &c. 
Evidently, if the meaning of the Scriptures is not to be regarded 
as appropriated merely to the persons and things of which they 
treat in their lettter,— if they thus are not of private but of uni- 
versal interpretation; then they must contain an interior sense, a 
hidden wisdom, adapted to the edification of every Christian in 
every age of the world. 

The evidence, then, to the nature of the Scriptures of the Old 
Testament, is already very complete: but had all the other writers 
of the New Testament been silent on the subject, we still should 
have had sufficient information to guide our judgment, in the book 
that closes the canon of Scripture. In this book — the Eevelation 
of John, how full is the testimony which we find to the hidden 
wisdom contained in all the affairs and writings relating to the 
Jewish dispensation! It would, however, engage us too long, 
were we to examine it in detail: suffice it then to say, that much of 
the imagery of this book is taken from the state of things which 
* 2 Pet. L 19, 20, 

3 



50 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

existed under the Mosaic law. Though written, according to the 
best computations, upwards of twenty years after the destruction 
of the city and temple of Jerusalem, it contains repeated mention 
of both*; — as also of the arkf, — of the altars of in cense X and of 
burnt offerings §, — of the twelve tribes of Israel ||, notwithstanding 
ten of them had long before been entirely dispersed and mixed 
with other nations; beside many of the persons^" and places** 
treated of in the sacred history of the Jews ; all which furnish the 
writer with a copious store of imagery that is evidently purely 
symbolic: how plain then is the inference, that these things belong- 
ing to the circumstances of the Jewish dispensation, and which are 
here incontrovertibly used as mere symbols, bearing a spiritual mean- 
ing, were equally symbols, and equally bore a spiritual meaning, when 
they really existed in, or in the vicinity of, the land of Canaan, and 
when they are spoken of in the letter of the other books of 
Scripture, ff 

Thus it is perfectly clear, that every thing relating to the Jews 
as a people, typified something belonging, either to the true Jews 
spoken of by Paul, who are such inwardly in the spirit and not 
outwardly in the letter \ or else to those mentioned in the Revelation, 
"who say they are Jews and are notJ|;" in other words, either to 
the true or to the merely professing members of the Church uni- 
versal: and as the whole of the Sacred Scriptures, in the literal 
sense, refers to such things, it follows, that the whole of the Sacred 
Scriptures contains an inward meaning distinct from that of the 
letter, — that they are replete with stores of wisdom in their bosom, 
independently of what appears upon the surface. And it follows 
further, that in forming a judgment of their pretensions to inspira- 
tion, we are to be guided by their inward contents, and not solely 
by their outward form and appearance. To allude again to the 
image used by the Lord Jesus Christ, we are not to be offended 
at the "flesh" because we have not discernment to discover 
" the spirit." 

* Ch. iii. 12; xxi. 2; xi. 1, 19; xv. 5, 8; xvi. 1, 17. 

t Ch. xi. 19. % Ch. via. 3. § Ch. xi. 1. || Ch. vii. 4 to 8. 

% Ch. ii. 14, 20; iii 7; v. 5; xi. 3, 4; (see Zech. iv.l 1 to 14.) 

** Ch. xi. 8; chs. xvii. and xviii; xxi. 2, &c. 

ft See this argument farther deduced in the Appendix, No. I. 

XX Ch. ii. 9 ; iii. 9. 



II.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 51 

4. It having thus been so plainly taught by the Lord and his 
apostles, that the Scriptures are, in their inward bosom, spirit and 
life, it will be expected that the primitive Christian Church, which 
derived its ideas of the nature of the Scriptures from the teaching 
of the apostles, must universally have allowed them to possess this 
character : and, accordingly, ecclesiastical history, and the writings 
of those times which are still extant, shew that such was the case. 
Indeed, no truth in history is more certain than this; that for at 
least fourteen or fifteen hundred years, few who received the 
Scriptures at all, ever thought of denying that they contained 
mysteries in their bosom which do not appear upon the surface. 
It is true that some where dissatisfied, and even disgusted, with 
the interpretations which had been given by others, and rather sought 
to ascertain the true literal sense than to explore what might lie 
beyond: but few ever thought of affirming, that nothing beyond 
the letter was included in them. The accounts which are contained 
in that well-known work, Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, abun- 
dantly prove this : and as it is not our intention here to inquire 
what the interpretations were, which, in consequence of their 
admission of a hidden sense, where given of Scripture by ancient 
Christian writers, but only to establish the fact, that they believed 
it to contain such a sense ; the statements of this author will be 
sufficient for our purpose. 

(1.) Mosheim was himself one of the modern writers who lay it 
down as a " golden rule," that the Scripture contains but one sense, 
which is that of the letter ; on which his translator, Dr. Maclaine*, 
found it necessary to remark, that " this golden rule will often be 
found defective and false f," unless many exceptions be made to it: 
Mosheim, however, was strongly attached to it; and hence the 
opprobrious language which he uses in regard to all who maintain 
the opposite opinion, must be received with many grains of allow- 
ance. Such being his sentiments, he evidently is much annoyed at 
being obliged to record, that the belief of a hidden sense was uni- 
versal ill the primitive ages : he, however, does record it, though 
he depreciates the writings of those who adopt the principle. Thus, 
speaking of the mode of interpreting Scripture in the first century, 

* An Irish Divine, and minister at the Hague. He made a translation of 
Mosheim's Institute, in 1764. — H. 

t Cent, xvi Sec. 3, Pt. 2, Ch. 1, § 16, Note (a). 



52 PLENARY INSPIRATION O,? [lECT. 

lie says, " It must be acknowledged, that even in this century, 
several Christians adopted that absurd and corrupt custom, used 
among the Jews, of darkening the plain words of the Holy Scrip- 
tures by insipid and forced allegories, and of drawing them vio- 
lently from their proper and natural signification, in order to extort 
from them certain hidden and mysterious significations. For a 
proof of this we need go no farther than the Epistle of Barnabas, 
which is yet extant."* It is well he did not say "the epistles of 
Paul ; " for we have seen that Paul quite as decidedly favoured the 
practice of drawing from the plain words of Scripture, not, indeed, 
insipid and forced allegories, but weighty and just ones; and it 
must be remembered, that Barnabas was an apostolical man, the 
friend of Paul and the other Apostles, and sometimes called an 
Apostle himself f : although then Barnabas might err in his appli- 
cation of the general principle, — that there is a hidden sense in the 
Scriptures, — we hardly can suppose that he was mistaken in the 
principle itself. The intimate friend of the Apostles must have 
known, whether this principle was acknowledged by them, or 
not 4 

When he comes to the second century, speaking of the veneration 
■with which the Holy Scriptures were then regarded, Dr. Mosheim 
says, that many employed their "useful labours in explaining and 
interpreting them." As the chief of these expositors he mentions 
Pantsenus, the head of the Alexandrian school of divinity; Clement 
of Alexandria, whom he had before described as " the most illus- 
trious writer of this century, and the most justly renowned for his 
various erudition, and his perfect acquaintance with the ancient 
sages," and whose works, " yet extant, abundantly shew the extent 
of his learning, and the force of his genius;" Justin, "a man of 
eminent piety and considerable learning, who from a pagan philo- 
sopher became a Christian martyr;" and Theophilus§, Bishop of 

* Cent. 1, Pt. 1, Ch. 3, § 2. f Acts adv. 14. 

X Mosheim indeed, with some others, does not allow the author of the epistle 
of Barnabas, to have been the Barnabas who was the companion of Paul ; but 
tipon no other grounds, than because he does not consider the epistle to be 
worthy of such a man. He allows it, however, to be a production of the first 
century; and none of the early Christians seem to have denied its being 
genuine. 

§ He is reckoned among the Fathers of the Church. He was the first Chris- 
tian writer who used the word Trinity, — H. 



II.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 53 

Antioch, whose works are "remarkable for their erudition," though 
not for "their order and method:" and of these distinguished 
lights of the church he says, that "they all attributed a double 
sense to the words of Scripture, the one obvious and literal, the 
other hidden and mysterious, which lay concealed, as it were, undei 
the veil of the outward letter."* 

Proceeding to the third century, and commemorating the pains 
then taken by some to multiply correct copies of the Scriptures, he 
mentions the celebrated Origen in these words: "But Origen 
surpassed all others in diligence and assiduity ; and his famous 
Hexaplaf, though almost destroyed by the waste of time, will 
remain an eternal monument of the incredible application with 
which that great man laboured to remove the obstacles which re- 
tarded the progress of the gospel." % He had previously § given 
the character of Origen in stronger terms still. Speaking of the 
principal writers of the third century, he says, " The most eminent 
of these, whether we consider the extent of his fame, or the mul- 
tiplicity of his labours, was Origen, a presbyter and catechist 
of Alexandria; a man of vast and uncommon abilities, and the 
greatest luminary of the Christian world that this age exhibited to 
view. Had the justness of his judgment been equal to the immen- 
sity of his genius, the fervour of his piety, his indefatigable patience, 
his extensive erudition, and his other eminent and superior talents, 
all encomiums must have fallen short of his merit. Yet such as he 
was, his virtues and his labours deserve the admiration of all ages ; 
and his name will be transmitted with honour through the annals 
of time, as long as learning and genius shall be esteemed among 
men." Higher eulogy could not easily be penned : and the reserve 
that is made on the score of his judgment, may fairly be ascribed 
to the prejudice of the writer against any but the literal interpre- 
tation of Scripture. No literary pursuit requires a more accurate 
judgment than sacred criticism : and Origen is universally allowed 
to have been one of the most laborious and judicious critics that 
ever lived. He was in no respect inferior to the Wetsteins |J and 

* Cent. 2, Pt. 2, Ch. 3, § 4, 5 ; and Ch. 2, § 5. 
f A work in which he exhibited, at one view, six copies or versions of the 
Scriptures, after the manner of the modern Polyglotts. 

% Cent. 3, Pt. 2, Ch. 3, § 4. § Ibid. Cb, 2, § 7. 

U John James Wetstein, celebrated for his labours on the New Testament. 



54 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

Griesbachs* of our days, in that species of erudition and industry 
to which they devoted all their attention. He displayed the utmost 
diligence and acumen in fixing the text, and ascertaining the literal 
sense, of Scripture : but he did not, like many who have followed 
him, in modern times, in this walk of biblical literature, because 
he excelled in it, extol it as the whole, or the highest. This great 
man, then, strenuously maintained that the chief wisdom in the 
Scriptures lies beyond the letter. " He alleged," to quote again 
from Mosheim, " that the words of Scripture, were, in many places, 
absolutely void of sense ; and that though, in others, there were 
indeed certain notions contained under the outward terms according 
to their literal force and import, yet it was not in these that the 
true meaning of the sacred writers was fo be sought, but in a mys- 
terious and hidden sense arising from the nature of the things 
themselves."! Mosheim adds, " A prodigious number of interpre- 
ters, both in this and the succeeding ages, followed the method of 
Origen, though with some variation ; nor could the few who ex- 
plained the sacred writings with judgment, and a true spirit of 
criticism," [so our author is pleased to give his opinion; though 
we have seen that Origen himself was one of the greatest of critics,] 
" oppose, with any success, the torrent of allegory that was over- 
flowing the church."| Very strong testimony, this, as to the 
state of opinion in those ages on the nature of the Scriptures. And 
it must be kept in mind, that this is all that we are concerned with. 
I undertake not to vindicate the interpretations themselves, but 
only the general principle which all such interpretations assume ; — 
that there is in the Scriptures more than meets the eye. 

But if I would not vindicate the interpretations of these early 
times, farther than as regards their general principle, still less 
would I defend, in any other respect, the expositors of the following 
ages. It will not however be without its interest and its use, if 
we take, from our author, a rapid sketch of the state of Scripture 
" His ' Prolegomena' to a new edition of the Greek Testament, was published 
in 1730, and in 1751 the text itself was given to the world with every variation 
that he had discovered, and his critical remarks." — Ency. Biog. — H. 

* John James, the eminent German critic, so distinguished for his attain- 
ments in theological, biblical, and ecclesiastical literature, particularly for his 
edition of the Greek gospels, with a critical history of the printed text, and 
examinations of various readings. — Ency. Biog. — H. 

t Cent. 3, Pt. 2, Ch. 3, § 5. % Ibid. § 6. 



II.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 55 

interpretation, through the succeeding ages, to the period of the 
Reformation from Popery. 

As after the third century many deviations from the pure Chris- 
tian doctrine and worship became general, it cannot be deemed 
surprising if the interpreters of Scripture should be found to have 
fallen into serious errors, and grievously to have misapplied the 
great general truth, that the Scriptures contain a sense beyond that 
of the letter. We find, however, that all the eminent names in the 
church continued to adhere to this truth, with very few exceptions, 
down to the age of Luther. The most learned of the fathers of the 
fourth century, were Eusebius and Jerome ; and these Mosheim 
puts in his list of allegorical interpreters : he claims Augustine as 
adhering to the letter ; but he cannot mean that this father denied 
there to be any thing beyond the letter ; since his writings contain 
many beautiful spiritual interpretations. In the fiflJi century he 
only gives the names of one or two who confined themselves to the 
literal sense, as exceptions to the general practice. In the sixth 
century the number of interpreters is described as considerable : 
Among the Greeks, our author states, the principal were Procopius 
i>f Gaza, Severus of Antioch, and Julian ; and among the Latins, 
Gregory the Great, Cassiodorus, Primasius, Isidore of Seville, and 
Bellator. The commentators of this age, he affirms, may be divided 
into two classes : the first of whom merely collected the interpreta- 
tions of the ancient doctors of the church, (who, we have already 
seen, proceeded in their writings upon the admission of a spiritual 
sense,) which collections afterwards acquired the technical name of 
chains; and the other class followed their own ideas, setting up 
Origen as their great model. The seventh century produced but 
few expositors : The Grecian doctors all followed the allegorical 
mode : but " the Latins," says Mosheim, in his usual sarcastic style, 
" were so diffident of their abilities, that they did not dare to enter 
these allegorical labyrinths, [under their own guidance, he means,] 
but contented themselves with what flowers they could pluck out of 
the rich collections of Gregory and Augustine." In the eighth 
century, both the Greeks and Latins confined themselves almost 
entirely to the task of compilation : but those who framed any 
thing of their own, as Alcuin, Authpert, and the venerable Bede, 
all men of the greatest abilities, always sought for the " hidden and 
mystical meaning, which they usually divided into allegorical, ana- 



56 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

gogical, and topological." The same description applies to the 
writers of the ninth century, with the partial exception of two, 
Druthmar, and Bertharius ; Mosheim continues to divide the rest 
into compilers and original authors; and he thus describes the 
form which the system of Scripture-interpretation had now as- 
sumed : " The fundamental principle, in which all the writers of this 
class [those who were not mere compilers] agree, is, that, beside 
the literal signification of each passage in Scripture, there are hidden 
and deep senses which escape the vulgar eye ; but they are not 
agreed about the number of these mysterious significations. Some 
attribute to every phrase three senses ; others four ; others again 
five ; nay, their number is carried to seven, by Angelome, a monk 
of Lisieux, an acute though fantastic writer, and who is far from 
deserving the meanest rank among the expositors of this century." 
The tenth century was an age of great darkness, which produced 
few expositors of Scripture ; and these were chiefly mere compilers. 
There were more writers in the eleventh century, and of the same 
two classes. In the twelfth century the number of interpreters is 
described as great, but, unless Eupert of Divytz is to be considered 
as an exception, the same character is given of them as before. 
" The Christian interpreters and commentators of the thirteenth 
century, differ very little," says Mosheim, " from those of the pre- 
ceding times. The greatest part of them pretended to draw from 
the depths of truth, what they called the internal juice and marrow 
of the Scriptures, i.e., their hidden- and mysterious sense:" he 
adds, (and, I doubt not, correctly ; for I repeat, though I conceive 
their general principle to be right, I readily concede that their ap- 
plication of it was wrong,) " and this they did with so little dex- 
terity, so little plausibility and invention, that most of their expli- 
cations must appear insipid and nauseous to such as are not 
entirely destitute of judgment and taste." This I quote, because 
he mentions as examples, beside Anthony of Padua, our Archbishop 
Langton, and Hugo de St. Cher, or Cardinal Hugh de St. Caro ; 
whence we see, as in former instances, that although the biblical 
expositions of those days might be unsound, they often proceeded 
from the most solid judgments of the age, and from men who de- 
served well of posterity. The common reader of the Bible is in- 
debted for the facility of finding and remembering its various con- 
tents, to Archbishop Langton, who first divided it into chapters, 



II.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 57 

and who moreover is called by Moslieim's translator, " a learned 
and polite author, for the age in which he lived :" and the more 
diligent student owes the help he derives from a Concordance, to 
Cardinal Hugo, who compiled the first that ever was made, and 
whose work has been the model of all the Concordances which have 
followed, whether in Hebrew or Greek, in Latin or English : he> 
likewise, had so much of the sober-minded critic in his character^ 
that he compiled a Very learned collection of the various readings 
of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin manuscripts of the Bible. In 
the fourteenth century, except Nicholas de Lyra, all the commen- 
tators followed the methods already explained : and of those of the 
fifteenth century the same character is givem This brings us to 
the era of the reformation ; when the desire of receding as far as 
possible from the Eoman Catholics, who continued to adhere to 
the old system, joined to disgust at the manner in which the doc- 
trine of a spiritual sense had been abused, by being applied to 
confirm the errors of the Eoman Catholic church, induced some of 
the Eeformers to reject it ; though it has continued to have many 
eminent advocates among them to the present day. If it could 
be shewn that the doctrine itself was a corrupt invention of the 
Eomish church, there would be reason for rejecting it : but when 
it can be proved to have been the belief of the primitive ages, and 
this because it is taught in the Scriptures themselves, we ought 
to take the pains to separate the errors that have been attached to 
it from the truth itself, and not reject both together. As, during 
many ages, every thing connected with religion suffered the most 
grievous perversion, it is not to be wondered at that the same fate 
attended the spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures : but to deny 
the truth of the principle on this account, is just as reasonable as 
it would be to deny the truth of the declaration — " All power is 
given to me in heaven and in earth*,"—- made by the Lord Jesus 
Christ, because to this doctrine has been attached the monstrous 
appendage, that the Pope is his Vicar. 

I will conclude this statement of the sentiments of the primitive 
and middle ages on the subject of Scripture-interpretation, in the 
words of two eminent luminaries of the Anglican Church. Arch- 
bishop Wake, one of the most learned and pious prelates that ever 
sate in the English Metropolitan Chair, in the introduction to his 
* Matt, xxviii. 18. 

3* 



58 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [lECT. 

translation of M the Genuine Epistles of the Apostolical Fathers," 
has some remarks in defence of the spiritual expositions of Scrip- 
ture, and of Barnabas in particular. He says*, " I need not say 
how general a way this was of interpreting Scripture in the time 
that St. Barnabas lived. To omit Origen, who has been noted as 
excessive in it, and for whom, yet, the learned Huetius has lately 
made a reasonable apology ; who has ever shewn a more diffusive 
knowledge than Clemens Alexandrinus has done in all his com- 
posures ? and yet in his works we find the very same method taken 
of interpreting the Holy Scriptures, and that without any reproach 
either to his learning or judgment. What author has been more 
generally applauded for his admirable piety than that other Clement, 
[Clemens Eomanus, a disciple and " fellow labourerf" of Paul,] 
whose epistle to the Corinthians I have here inserted ? and yet in 
that plain piece we meet with more than one instance of the same 
kind of interpretation ; which was nevertheless admired by the best 
and most primitive Christians." So Bishop Home, in the Preface 
to his Commentary on the Psalms, speaking of the testimony of the 
ancients, has these words : " They are unexceptionable witnesses 
to us of this matter of fact : that such a spiritual method of in- 
terpreting the Scriptures, did universally prevail in the church from 
the beginning." 

So far then as authority is to be consulted in the decision of 
such a -question, the weight of evidence for the spiritual sense of 
the Scriptures is irresistible. What regard is to be had to the 
doubts of a few moderns, when opposed to the unanimous decision 
of all antiquity, — to the unvarying acknowledgment of so many 
ages ? Although, through part of its course, the doctrine of spiri- 
tual interpretation may have been rendered less clear by the foul- 
ness of the channel through which it flowed ; and although it has, 
in modem times, been made less distinguishable by a mixture of 
other waters ; it unquestionably had its rise in the virgin days of 
Christianity : Unless then it is to be contended, that the farther 
from the fountain, the purer the stream, it must be admitted, that 
the doctrine of spiritual interpretation is the pure doctrine of the 
Christian church. 

(2.) The Keformation from Popery introduced in the Christian 
church a great variety of opinions; and it would be a very extensive 
» Ch. vii. § 25. f Phil 



II.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 59 

task to trace, through the numerous sects which have thus sprung 
up, the fluctuations of sentiment in regard to the principles of 
Scripture-interpretation. And the task would be nearly as un- 
profitable as it would be tedious : since the opinions of the moderns 
can have no other weight, than that which they derive from their 
evident reasonableness and agreement with Scripture : as authority, 
they have none. I shall confine myself therefore to a few English 
testimonies ; only observing, once for all, of the modern writers in 
general, that while the ancients generally believed the spiritual 
sense to extend throughout the Scriptures, few of the moderns allow 
it this complete universality ; on the other hand, while many of 
these deny its existence generally, few of them refuse to admit it in 
particular instances. This qualification then must be applied to 
the testimonies I shall adduce from them in favour of a spiritual 
sense ; but we shall see in the sequel, that, if we make the admission 
at all, we must, with the ancients, make it universal. 

As the most recent of modern testimonies of importance, I select 
that of the Eev. T. H. Home, with an older author or two cited by 
him : we shall also have occasion to refer to other authorities in 
our subsequent Lectures. In his laborious " Introduction to the 
Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures," — a work 
which has rapidly passed through three [1825] editions, and has been 
received with the general applause of biblical students, Mr. Home 
expresses himself thus : " The spiritual interpretation of Scripture 
has been as much depreciated by some commentators and biblical 
critics as it has been exaggerated and carried to the extreme by 
others : but if the argument against a thing from the possibility of 
its being abused be inadmissible in questions of a secular nature, it 
is equally inadmissible in the exposition of the Sacred Writings. 
All our ideas are admitted through the medium of the senses ; and 
consequently refer, in the first place, to external objects : but no 
sooner are we convinced that we possess an immaterial soul or 
spirit, than we find occasion for other terms, or, for want of these, 
another application of the same terms to a different class of ob- 
jects : and hence arises the necessity of resorting to figurative and 
spiritual interpretation. Now, the object of revelation being to 
make known things which * eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor 
have entered into the heart of man to conceive/ it seems hardly 
possible that the human mind should be capable of apprehending 



60 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

them, but through the medium of figurative language or mystical 
representations."* In this passage, as it appears to me, the ques- 
tion is placed upon exactly the right ground ; and a clue is at the 
same time given to the discovery of the law or rule according to 
which the Scriptures are written, and by which their spiritual sense 
is to be decyphered. It is perfectly true that our ideas are re- 
ceived, in the first instance, by the instrumentality of the senses : 
these, however, can bring us acquainted with none but external 
and sensible objects ; the images of which, thus obtained, become, 
nevertheless, the basis of all our future thoughts, and, in number- 
less instances, are transferred from their primary notions, and used 
as the signs of totally different things. It has been objected by 
Infidels, that as all our ideas have a reference to the objects of 
outward nature, and we cannot think even of immaterial things 
without the help of images thence compounded, this is a proof that 
nothing but nature has a real existence, and that all beyond i9 
purely the creature of the imagination : but this is a most gra- 
tuitous assumption : the true statement of the case would be, that 
there is between material and immaterial objects such a sort of 
regular analogy, that the former present the most appropriate signs 
for the expression of the latter. We shall see in the sequel, that it 
is by this immutable principle that the Word of God is written. 
Mr. Home has established this truth by a beautiful quotation from 
Dr. John Clarke, who states it thus : 

" The foundation of religion and virtue being laid in the mind 
and heart, the secret dispositions and genuine acts of which are in- 
visible, and known only to a man's self; therefore the powers and 
operations of the mind can only be expressed in figurative terms 
and external symbols. The motives, also, and inducements to 
practice, are spiritual, such as affect man in a way of moral influ- 
ence, and not of natural efficiency; the principal of which are 
drawn from the consideration of a future state ; and, consequently, 
these, likewise, must be represented by allegories and similitudes, 
taken from things most known and familiar here. And thus we 
find in Scripture the state of religion illustrated by all the beautiful 
images we can conceive. — In the interpretation of places, in which 
any of those images are contained, the principal regard is to be had 
to the figurative or spiritual, and not to the literal sense of the 
* Vol. 2, Pt. 2, Ch. 1, § 5. 



It.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 61 

words. — Of this nature are all the rites and ceremonies prescribed 
to the Jews, with relation to the external form of religious worship; 
every one of which was intended to shew the obligation, or recom- 
mend the practice) of some moral duty, and was esteemed of no 
farther use than as it produced that effect. And the same may be ap- 
plied to the rewards and punishments peculiar to the Christian dis- 
pensation, which regard a future state. The rewards are set forth 
by those things in which the generality of men take their greatest 
delight ; — and the punishments are such as are inflicted by human 
laws upon the worst of malefactors : but they can neither of them 
be understood in the strictly literal sense, but only by way of 
analogy, and corresponding in the general nature and intention of 
the thing, though very different in kind."* 

" But," adds Mr. Home* " independently of the able argument 
a priori^ here cited, in favour of the mediate, mystical, or spiritual 
interpretation of the Scriptures, unless such interpretation- be ad- 
mitted" [in conjunction, he means, with the truth of the literal 
sense,] " we cannot," [in the conclusive words of the late Bishop 
of Calcuttaf,] " avoid one of two great difficulties : for either we 
must assert, that the multitude of applications made by Christ and 
his apostles, are fanciful and unauthorized, and wholly inadequate 
to prove the points for which they are quoted ; or, on the other 
hand, we must believe, that the obvious and natural sense of such 
passages was never intended, and that it is a mere illusion. The 
Christian will object to the former of these positions ; the Philoso- 
jjJier and the Critic will not readily assent to the latter." % This 
powerful writer says again, in a passage not quoted by Home, that, 
without such a twofold explanation, " it will be impossible to place 
any of the citations in the New Testament, except, indeed, direct 
and avowed prophecies, on any better footing than that of being 
accidentally apposite to the occasion. A quotation from the Psalms, 
by St. Paul, will not, in its application, possess any advantage over 
a quotation from Horace by Addison." § 

Here then I am contented to rest my case, in regard to the ques- 

* Folio Collection of Boyle's Lectures, vol. iii. p. 229. 
f Dr. Thomas Fanshawe Middleton, the first English Bishop of Calcutta. 
His principal work is "The Doctrine of the Greek Article." — H. 

% Doct. of Greek Article, p. 580. § Ibid. p. 588. 



G2 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

tion, of the propriety of claiming for the Scriptures a spiritual sense, 
upon the supposition that they are rightly designated " the Word 
of God." If philosophy, and the immutable nature of things, are 
to be consulted, " the Word of God" must contain such a sense 
within it. If the testimony which the Scriptures bear to them- 
selves is to be regarded, they do contain such a sense. If " the 
multitude of applications" made of texts " by Christ and his Apos- 
tles" was not "fanciful and unauthorized," the double sense of 
Scripture is irrefragably established. If the concurrent acknow- 
ledgment of all who lived in the best days of Christianity is of any 
authority, we are constrained to admit this sense. If the preserva- 
tion of this acknowledgment through so many centuries, even 
through the ages of the greatest darkness, when the sentiments 
arising from it, together with all the doctrines of the Christian re- 
ligion, suffered gross perversion ; — if this, nevertheless, is an index 
that points to the source whence the acknowledgment was derived ; 
— then is the doctrine that the Scriptures do contain such a sense, 
a fundamental doctriue of the true Christian religion. And, finally, 
if the force of truth has pointed out this conclusion to the most in- 
telligent of the moderns ; if these, after throwing off the trammels 
of authority, and recurring to the original sources, are constrained 
to confess, that the spiritual sense of the Scriptures cnnnot be de- 
nied, without denying their truth altogether: assuredly we ought 
to embrace the doctrine, as we would embrace the palladium of the 
Christian faith. We shall find in the end, that, when rightly ap- 
prehended, it will prove a palladium indeed, by its power of pre- 
serving the Christian faith from the assaults of its opponents. 

IV. But, as has already been observed, though the testimony to 
the fact, that the Word of God contains stores of wisdom in its 
bosom, independently of what appears on the surface, is so ample, 
objections, during two or three centuries past, have been made to 
it, and its credit has gradually diminished. The belief in the spiri- 
tual sense of Scripture, has run parallel with that of its plenary in- 
spiration : as this lias declined, so has the other. Indeed, they are 
inseparably connected : for, as we have seen, if the Word of God 
is written by a plenary divine inspiration, it must contain interior 
treasures within its outward shell, necessarily formed there by its 
descent from the Inmost of all things into the world of nature ; 
whereas if it is not so written, it cannot include such hidden wis- 



II.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 63 

dom ; at least, whatever it might thus contain beyond the letter, 
would be, in the latter case, the result of artificial contrivance in 
the writers, not, as in the former, naturally inherent in writings so 
imparted : and the looking at the spiritual sense thus, as a merely 
artificial contrivance, has greatly helped to bring it into doubt. 
We have seen, also, that the expositions of this sense usually offered, 
have not been such as were adapted to recommend it. Things of 
little moment, savouring only of the little minds of men, and quite 
unworthy of the wisdom of Deity, have too generally been produced 
as spiritual interpretations : and where more elevated ideas have 
been presented, satisfactory reasons not being assigned for them, 
they, also, were liable to be ascribed to the mere fancy of the 
writers. Among the explications thus offered, there was likewise 
an endless variety, and generally as much disagreement. When, 
therefore, so much error was thus mixed up with the practice of 
spiritual interpretation, it was not extraordinary that, however true 
in itself, discredit should in time be thrown upon the principle also. 
Thus many began to shut their eyes to the Scripture testimonies in 
its favour ; to regard it as merely opening a door to uncertainty 
and confusion; and to insist that the letter of the Holy Word 
should alone be studied, as the only basis of certainty, and as con- 
taining, in fact, all that was intended to be revealed. 

Nothing can be farther from my intention, than to depreciate, 
in the slightest degree, the literal sense of the Scriptures, or the 
importance of studying it with diligence: on the contrary, I am 
fully sensible of the obligations which the Christian world owes to 
the learned moderns, who have endeavoured to revive a knowledge 
of the original languages of Holy Writ, and to restore the true im- 
port of its words and phrases. Their labours have furnished the 
biblical student of our days with more efficient helps to the right 
understanding of the letter of the sacred pages, than have been 
before enjoyed since the times when Hebrew and Greek were living 
languages : and if the partial neglect, or even denial, of the spirit 
tual sense, was necessary to turn men's minds to the study of the 
literal sense, with the concentration of powers necessary to its com- 
plete elucidation ; we may see, in the end for which this was per- 
mitted, an object worthy of Divine Providence ; for we see the 
means hereby provided, by which the study of the spiritual sense 
may be placed upon a safer basis than it ever stood upon before. 



64r PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [lECT. 

Most heartily do I concur in the observation of Bishop Lowth, 
that " the deep and recondite senses" of Scripture, "must owe all 
their weight and solidity to the just and accurate interpretation of 
the words. For whatever senses are supposed to be included in 
the Prophet's words, Spiritual, Mystical, Allegorical, Analogical, or 
the like, they must all entirely depend on the literal sense. This 
is the only foundation upon which such interpretations can be se- 
curely raised ; and if this is not firmly and well established, all 
that is built upon it will fall to the ground."* Every one must 
also admit the following remark to be equally true and candid : 
" Strange and absurd deductions of notions and ideas, foreign to 
the author's drift and design, will often arise from the invention of 
Commentators, who have nothing but an inaccurate translation to 
work upon. This was the case of the generality of the Fathers of 
the Christian Church, who wrote comments upon the Old Testa- 
ment : and it is no wonder, that we find them of so little service 
in leading us into the true meaning and deep sense of the Prophetic 
Writings." Whoever then assists us better to understand the 
letter of the Scriptures, is entitled to our thanks; and to our 
forgiveness if, while intent on this, he should have undervalued 
their spirit. 

But the literal sense of Scripture, and the right understanding 
of it, have also important uses of their own, independently of that 
which they furnish in yielding a foundation for the higher meaning 
to rest on. Although there is a great part of the Word of God, 
which, without the spiritual sense, would be quite useless as to 
any spiritual improvement, yet there are other parts in which the 
most important truths are presented to view in the very letter; and 
this in sufficient abundance to establish all the points of faith that 
ought to be insisted upon in the codes of Christian instruction. 
Unquestionably, all doctrine should be drawn from the literal sense, 
and proved by it : by this, likewise, should all controversies be 
decided : and nothing which cannot thus be shewn and established, 
should be considered as binding upon the conscience of any one : 
otherwise, there would indeed be reason to complain of uncer- 
tainty in regard to the foundations of our faith ; since the spiritual 
sense of any particular text, though capable of being clearly ex- 
hibited to the intellectual eye, can never appear so unquestionable 
♦ Lowth's Isaiah, Prel. Dis. 



II.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 65 

to a mind that judges solely on the evidence of the senses, as a 
statement of the same truth in plain words. The letter of the 
Holy "Word is therefore so constructed, that the doctrines most 
necessary to salvation may therein be openly discerned. Although 
the divine truth and wisdom contained in the Scriptures, only 
shine with all their glory in the spiritual sense, they do not 
assume their full power, till they appear in a plain statement 
in the letter ; as the energies of the human mind, assume, as their 
instrument of action, the human hand. We have compared, in a 
former part of this Lecture, the letter of the Word of God to the 
skin that covers the body, and its hidden contents to the interior 
organs and members ; but, to illustrate the present subject, the 
Holy Word in general may be compared to a beautiful female, 
clothed in becoming drapery, but whose face and hands remain 
uncovered : thus, while the greater part of the letter of the Scrip- 
tures consists of truths veiled over by natural images, which cannot 
be decyphered without a key, the things most indispensable to be 
known are openly displayed. 

The spiritual sense of Scripture is not however without its use, 
in the framing of systems of doctrine also : but its use here will 
be, not to present the truths wlrich are to be believed, independently 
of the statements of the letter, but to prevent us from mistaking 
one of the two classes of passages just alluded to for the other, and 
thus bringing prominently forward and understanding according to 
their outward expression, some obscure texts, as if (to carry on our 
comparison) they belonged to an important feature of the face, 
while they form part, in reality, of the skirt of the garment. Everv 
one knows that there are statements in the Scriptures which appear 
to be in opposition to each other ; as when it is sometimes said of 
the Divine Being, that he repenteth*, and at others, that he re- 
penteth not.f It is evident that both these assertions cannot be 
true in the same sense : and yet, if they equally form part of the 
Word of God, they must both be true in some sense : what then is 
the plain inference, but that the one passage delivers the naked 
truth, the other, the truth covered with the veil of a mere appear- 
ance taken from human ideas? In both declarations, a spiritual 
sense is included : but in the one it only exalts and extends, in the 
other it is required to correct aad rectify, the statement of the 
* Gen. vi. 6. t Numb, xxiii. 19. 



66 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

letter. Deny any sense beyond the letter, and you fix such 
passages in irreconcilable opposition : you have then no alternative, 
if you still believe the Scriptures to contain a system of truth, but 
to fix your attention wholly on the one class of passages, and slur 
over the other without notice : and you may even select for your 
preference the class of passages which present the truth under a 
veil, and may confirm in your mind, as the genuine truth, the out- 
ward enigmatical expression, to the neglect of the truth itself, 
which other passages openly discover. This has been the imme- 
diate origin (though not the final cause,) of all the mistakes, which, 
in various ages, have been obtruded on the world as the doctrines 
of the Scriptures : — an insight into the interior meaning of the 
Sacred Word would have corrected them at once. 

We see then, on the one hand, that the most devoted adherents 
to the letter of Scripture need not oppose the belief of its contain- 
ing a farther sense besides, under the apprehension, that this would 
abolish the former : so far from making void the letter, by viewing 
it in connexion with the spirit, we thereby establish the letter. On 
the other hand we see, that a reference to the spiritual sense is 
highly requisite, to secure us from error in the interpretation of the 
literal. Like soul and body, they are equally necessary to each 
other. As the soul, without the body, could not make its existence 
perceptible in the world of nature ; so neither could the spiritual 
sense of the Scriptures, without the letter, be communicated to the 
inhabitants of the natural world : and as the body, without the 
soul, would be void of life ; so would be the letter of Scripture, if 
entirely separate from its spirit. It is the translucence of the spirit 
through the letter which makes this the vehicle of conveying divine 
truth to the mind, and which presents the truth, in greater or less 
fulness, even to those who deny its distinct existence ; just as the 
body of man derives from the soul the life it exhibits, even in the 
case of the materialist, who will not believe that he has a soul 
within him. There must be an animating principle somewhere; 
and the inquiry must be highly important which would teach us 
what it is. 

But many fear to admit this idea, in regard to the Scriptures, 
under the impression, that any departure from the letter must 
necessarily introduce uncertainty, and confusion. The objection 
would be well founded, if no rule could be laid down of general 



II.] THE SCREPTUItES ASSERTED. 67 

application, but we were to be left to mere conjecture, every ex- 
positor being guided solely by his own fancy; in which case, 
although, like Justin Martyr*, he might be persuaded, that he had 
been endowed with a special gift for understanding the Scriptures, 
others, not seeing any reason for his explanations, must be prone 
to doubt their truth. But could it be shewn that the Scriptures 
are written throughout according to an immutable Law or Eule, a 
knowledge of which would, in explaining them, substitute certainty 
for conjecture and cut off the sources of vague interpretation : — 
then this objection, which is the only plausible one, against their 
containing a spiritual sense, falls immediately to the ground. That 
they must be written upon one uniform principle, follows as a neces- 
sary consequence, upon the supposition that they proceeded from a 
plenary divine inspiration : that they are thus written, and what 
the Law or Eule is according to which they are written, we shall 
endeavour to evince in our subsequent Lectures. 

Here then we pause, for the present. The questions which 
have been considered in this Lecture are highly important : we 
have reviewed them at some length : and I hope sufficient reason 
has been shewn, to incline every serious and candid mind to de- 
termine them in the affirmative. At least, I cannot think I am 
myself deceived so far, as to be following an error which has 
nothing to give it the air of truth : I cannot but believe, that rea- 
sons which appear to me to establish beyond all doubt the spiritual 
sense of the Scriptures, must at least appear to others of sufficient 
weight to entitle the subject to a full and fair examination. This 
is all that I solicit. I trust that every Christian will be ready, on 
sufficient evidence, to accept views which tend so immensely to 
exalt in his estimation the Word of God ; and that the Deist also 
will listen attentively to considerations, which, if true, prove it to 
be the Word of God indeed. 

* Dial. Par. 2. p. 352, 390. 



68 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 



LECTUEE III. 

THE LAW OK RULE EXPLAINED ACCORDING TO WHICH TOE SCRDPTURES 
ARE WRITTEN. 

Preliminary remark, on the Reasons why the Scriptures are not written in plainer 
language— Short Recapitulation. I. A Universal Rule of Interpretation afforded in the 
Mutual Relation, which exists by creation, between things natural or material, spiritual 
or moral, and divine. II. The nature of this Relation considered:—!. The whole 
Universe an out-birth from the Deity whence it bears, in all its parts, an immutable 
relation to the attributes which belong to the Divine Essence.— 2. That on all things 
belonging to the moral, intellectual, and spiritual worlds, the Divine Creator has tl:us 
first stamped a certain image of himself: — 3. And that he has done the same, though 
under a totally different form, on all the objects of outward and material nature:— 
4. Whence all things in Nature, being outward productions from inward essences, are 
natural, sensible, and material types of moral, intellectual, and spiritual antitypes, and 
finally of their prototypes in God. III. That, were the Relation between these different 
orders of existences fully understood, a style of writing might be constructed, in which, 
while none but natural images were used, purely intellectual ideas should be most fully 
expressed. — 1. That this is in a great measure intuitively perceived by all mankind, and 
is the origin of many forms of speech in common use. — 2. Palpable instances of the 
occurrence of such forms of speech in the Holy Word. — IV. That in ancient times this 
constant Relation between things natural, moral or spiritual, and divine, was extensively 
understood: — 1. Proved from intimations in the historical parts of Scripture. — 2. Con- 
firmatory remarks, drawn from the mythological fables of the Greeks and Asiatics, and 
the Hieroglyphics of Egypt.— V. That in this Relation, then, is to be found the Law or 
Rule according to which the Scriptures are written, and that a knowledge of it will afford 
the key by which their "dark sayings" must be decyphered. 

We now approach a part of our inquiry of the very greatest im- 
portance ; for we are now to investigate what the Law or Rule is, 
by which the Holy Scriptures or Word of God are written ; and 
this, being a subject of deep investigation, will require to be gone 
into with very close and serious attention. It is not, indeed, in 
itself, extremely difficult of comprehension : on the contrary, I am 
satisfied that it is capable of being made very plain and easy ; and 
even, if sufficient attention be given, that the arguments and 
instances by which it may be supported, will be found as interest- 
ing, as the subject itself is great and important : but it is usual 
with many, in this superficial age, to be indisposed to any inquiry 
that requires the exercise of fixed attention. Especially on the 
subject of religion, it is common, with great numbers, to be un- 
willing to regard any thing which is not obvious at first sight. 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED 69 

Indeed, this forms one of the objections of Deists against the 
Christian Revelation in general ; and will perhaps be still more 
positively urged against the view of it, which we are endea- 
vouring to establish : we will therefore here meet it with a few 
remarks. 

The Scriptures contain many things, the Deists allege, which, it 
is allowed on all hands, are hard to be understood ; if then the 
belief of them is so important to man's welfare, why, they demand, 
is not some standing miracle wrought to assure us of their truth ? 
And one of the most determined infidels has insolently suggested, 
as a suitable expedient*, that God ought to cause a permanent in* 
scription to appear on the face of the sun, assuring mankind, 
through all countries and all ages, that the Scriptures are true. 
But they who propose such expedients as these, only shew how 
utterly ignorant they are, both of the nature of God, and of the 
nature of man ; and how destitute they are of any idea of the laws 
of infinite wisdom, by which God regulates his dealings with man. 
A conviction forced upon man against his will, would not be per- 
manent, nor really beneficial to him ; but, on the contrary, it would 
expose him to the danger of incurring far greater guilt than he can 
possibly rush into while he is left to the uncontrolled exercise of 
his own freedom, and while the light of Divine Truth is not poured 
on his mind with such lustre, as absolutely to compel his assent. 
It is for this reason, among others, that divine Eevelation <is always 
couched in language that is in a great measure parabolic and ob- 
scure. Though capable of being easily understood, at least as 
to every thing essential, by those who are influenced by a sincere 
desire to know the will of God in order that they may do it, — 
according to the divine declaration of Jesus Christ — " If any man 
will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of 
God f j" — it yet is not made so plain throughout, as to aggravate 
the condemnation of those, who, being disposed to do his will, and 
only anxious to find pretences to free themselves from the obligation 
of doing it, would be, in fact, the more offended at any revelation, 
just in proportion as they found it more difficult to devise plausible 
reasons for denying its authority. The former class of persons — 
the humble inquirers, — are meant by the disciples, and the latter — 
the pertinacious cavillers, — by the "others," or "them that are 
* Paine, Age of Reason, part 3. f J° nn v "« *7. 



70 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

without," in that saying of Jesus Christ in which he developes the 
law of Divine Mercy and Wisdom on this subject : " To you," he 
says, addressing the disciples, " it is given to know the mysteries 
of the kingdom of heaven ; but to others, in parables ; that seeing 
they might see and not perceive, and hearing they might hear and 
not understand* :" by which words is not meant that an arbitrary 
distinction is made between one portion of mankind and the rest, 
but that divine revelation is so framed, as not to force conviction 
on the understanding, where there is a determined resistance in the 
will ; because, if such persons should be made to assent for a time, 
their evil propensities would afterwards break out and cany them 
away : they would then deny the clearest demonstrations of divine 
truth ; and even had miracles been wrought for their conviction, 
they would deny these also, resolving them into some accountable 
operations of nature. The guilt thus incurred would be that of 
profanation. This state is described by Jesus Christ in the mys- 
terious parable of the man out of whom the evil spirit went, but 
who, finding no rest in his new state, returned to his former house, 
taking with him seven other spirits more wicked than the other ; 
of whom the Lord says, " And the last state of that man is worse 
than the first." f The first state of this man, is the state of unre- 
formed man in general : the going out of the evil spirit, is his 
commencement of a new order of life, in consequence of opening 
his mind to a conviction of the truth of divine revelation and its 
doctrines, which banishes for a time his spirit of incredulity : his 
walking through dry places, seeking rest and finding none, implies, 
that he finds his new state to be without enjoyment, because in 
contrariety to the lusts which were delightful to him, and which 
he is still unwilling to relinquish : his returning to the house from 
which he came out, is a relapse into his former state of mind ; but 
that this state is now attended with profanation, and is incom- 
parably worse than before, because, to return to it, he is obliged to 
extinguish the convictions he had received, is expressed by its being 
said, that he took with him seven other spirits more wicked than 
himself, and that the last state of that man is worse than the first. 
It is, then, because Divine Providence is ever watchful to prevent 
man from falling into so deplorable a state as this, that difficulties 
are allowed to appear ou the surface of the Word of God ; and it 
• Luke viii. 10 ; Mark iv. 11. t Matt. xiL 45. 



III.] . THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 71 

is for this, among other reasons, that it is so generally written in 
the language of parable. 

I expect, however, that the infidel (by which term I mean the 
confirmed denier of revelation, — one whose denial is grounded in a 
wish to justify himself in the gratification of his corrupt passions,) 
will call this, preaching. Be it so. I would however entreat him 
seriously to look at the doctrine so preached. He must, I am 
sure, find it agreeable to the purest reason, though such as reason, 
unenlightened by revelation, might not have been able to discover. 
He must also admit, that the economy of Divine Providence which 
the doctrine unfolds, is equally wise and beneficent, — such as might 
be expected to direct the conduct of a Being of infinite wisdom and 
goodness, in his dealings with a frail creature, like man. Whether 
then this be preaching or philosophizing ■, there is assuredly a strong 
presumption that it is pure truth : and this should recommend it 
to the favourable attention of those, who affect to hold pure truth 
in so much veneration. Would mankind but view the Scriptures 
according to their real nature, as faintly described in our last Lec- 
ture, and understand them by the Kule which we are next to en- 
deavour to explain, they would find them philosophizing according 
to the purest truth in every part,— every where preaching the most 
soul-exalting lessons of heavenly wisdom 1 

I have been led to make these remarks, that we might not appear 
to leave too long out of sight one of the objects of these Lectures, 
— the refutation of infidel objections to divine revelation, — while we 
are chiefly intent upon the other, — the proof of the plenary inspi- 
ration the Word of God : — though this, indeed, carries with it the 
former : for when once it is seen that the Word of God is actually 
written by a plenary divine inspiration, all objections against its 
being received as such, fall to the ground of course. In our last 
Lecture, then, we endeavoured to prepare the way for the establish- 
ment of this point. We shewed, first, that the Scriptures do claim 
for themselves the title, " the Word of God," and do affirm of 
themselves, that they are written by the fullest inspiration of God. 
We then considered, from rational and philosophical grounds, what 
must be the nature of a composition which has God for its Author; 
when we found that the Word of God must be exactly like his 
works, — that as these contain within them wonderful parts which 
do not appear on their surface, so must the Word of God include 



72 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

in its bosom boundless stores of wisdom beyond what appears on 
a superficial inspection. In the third place, we examined whether 
this conclusion of reason is supported by any plain declarations of 
Scripture ; of which many instances were presented : indeed we 
found the Lord Jesus Christ directing his hearers to regard the 
inward spirit and life of his words, and not to suppose his meaning 
confined to the outward expression i we ascertained, also, that the 
Apostles, in their writings, continually testify to the existence of 
an inward or spiritual sense throughout the Word of God ; and we 
demonstrated, in addition, that hence this belief, in the days of 
primitive Christianity, was universal ; that, for many ages, it was 
never doubted ; and that it has continued to be the opinion, to a 
greater or less extent, of many intelligent theological writers down 
to the present day. We take this testimony then, joined with the 
inherent reason of the thing itself, to be conclusive as to the reality 
of the fact, — that the Word of God does, in every part, contain a 
spiritual sense, treating of things in which man is interested as a 
spiritual being and an heir of immortality. 

We are not obliged, however, be it again remembered, nor do we 
by any means undertake, because we conceive the fact, — that the 
Scriptures contain a meaning beyond the letter, — to be a matter of 
absolute certainty, to defend all the interpretations which at various 
times have been offered to the world, as resulting from, or as being, 
this spiritual sense : we are even ready to allow, that very idle and 
unfounded explications have sometims been obtruded on the public, 
under the pretended sanction of this great general truth ; and we 
are not surprised that some of the critics, disgusted with the un- 
certainty which prevailed in the efforts to decypher the spiritual 
sense, by persons who possessed no certain rule to guide them in 
the attempt, have relinquished the principle altogether, and have 
begun to teach, that the Scriptures are to be understood in their 
literal sense alone. But we contend most decidedly, that the abuse 
of a good principle is no argument against its legitimate use. In 
all other cases this maxim is accepted as an axiom : if we deny it, 
we must deny everything ; at least we must involve ourselves in 
the cheerless gloom of universal scepticism. Indeed, to argue from 
the abuse of any sentiment against its use, will plunge us conti- 
nually into the most palpable absurdities. It is a truth, for in- 
stance, which all men of reason admit, that there is a God. \\ e 



III.] THE SCRirTUKES ASSEKTED. 73 

find this belief universal throughout the world. Now because it 
is unquestionably true that there is a God, it certainly by no means 
follows, that all the notions which all nations and religions have 
taught respecting him, are true likewise : but most assuredly it 
does not follow, because most nations and religions have erred in 
their notions of God, that, therefore, there is no God at all : on 
the contrary, the general belief, in some shape or other, in the 
existence of a God, however superstition and ignorance may have 
clouded the pure truth respecting his nature and the mode of his 
existence, has always been regarded as an insuperable argument in 
favour of the sentiment, that the existence of a Divine Being is 
certain, beyond dispute. Equally strong is the argument, from the 
general belief of there being a spiritual sense in the Scriptures, 
that there really is such a sense : and inconsistent or unfounded 
notions respecting the nature of that sense, no more prove that 
there is no such sense at all, than similar errors attending the 
belief in the existence of a God, can prove that there is no God. 

1. Now what has been wanting to recommend the spiritual 
sense of the Word of God to the acceptance of the calm, reasoning 
mind, has been, a certain rule by which it may be decyphered. 
Could such a rule be shewn to exist, the objections drawn from 
the tendency of the admission of a spiritual sense to introduce un- 
certainty and confusion into the explanation of Scripture, would, 
as stated in our last, fall at once to the ground : and the existence 
of such a sense, which multitudes have acknowledged by a kind of 
intuitive perception, would then be bottomed upon the clearest 
rational induction ; — would indeed admit of demonstration not less 
convincing, though of a somewhat different kind, than that which 
evinces the truth of any problem in mathematics. 

Such a rule, then, it is conceived, is afforded, in the Mutual 
Relation which exists by creation between things natural or mate- 
rial, spiritual or moral, and divine ; which is such that the lower 
order of objects answers to the higher, as certainly and immutably, 
as the reflection in a mirror answers to the substances produc- 
ing it. 

But, alas ! though this was a subject well understood in the 
times of remote antiquity, it now is not only generally unknown 
that the Holy Scriptures are written according to this Relation, 



74 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

from which, therefore, we may obtain a Universal Eule for their in- 
terpretation; but it is even far from being generally known that 
any such Eelation exists. Approximations have indeed been re- 
cently made towards its re-discovery, as will be noticed in the 
sequel; and there is reason to expect that, ere long, it will 
seriously occupy the attention of the scientific and religious public. 
In the hope of promoting this desirable event ; and because all that 
is to follow in these Lectures will refer to it as a first principle ; a 
slight attempt shall here be made to give a general idea of its 
Nature. 

II. That there exists, by the laws of creation, a Mutual Eelation 
between things natural or material, spiritual or moral, and divine, may 
be concluded from the indisputable fact, that every thing in a lower 
sphere of existence is produced for the sake of something in a higher; 
and if so, every higher thing, for the sake of which any object of a 
lower kind is produced, is the proximate cause, by derivation from the 
First Cause, of the existence of the latter: and there must be an un- 
interrupted series of such causes and effects, each intermediate effect 
becoming, in succession, a proximate cause of existence to some- 
thing beneath it, from the First Cause itself, to the lowest effects 
of all. Every proximate cause, also, by the urgency, and for the 
sake of which, something beneath it was produced, is, likewise, the 
real essence, or ground of being, of such lower production, which, 
on its part, is thus an outward form, manifesting the existence of 
such distinct essence. This will lead us to see, that the lower 
orders of objects must answer to the higher, as certainly and im- 
mutably, as the reflection in a mirror answers to the substance pro- 
ducing it. Thus, for example, every lower thing that exists is 
produced to serve, either more nearly or remotely, to the use of 
man : this being the second cause of its existence, the thing itself 
is actually an image, under a different form, of something that is 
in man : and man himself was produced to satisfy the divine love 
f God — thus for the sake of God, that there might be a being in 
the world capable of receiving, in a conscious manner, gifts from 
God, and of returning them to Him in love and adoration : and 
God himself thus being to man both the proximate and First Cause 
of his existence, man must be, in a certain manner, an image oi 
God ; and the most immediately so of anv thing that the world 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 75 

contains. We accordingly are assured by divine Eevelation, that 
man was created in the image and likeness of God. And if man, 
altogether, is, in a certain manner, an image of God, it follows evi- 
dently, that every particular thing which exists in man, (so far as 
he stands in the order of his creation,) is an image of something 
that exists in God: and, indeed, every thing in him which is not in 
the order of his creation, but which he has introduced by the abuse 
of his faculties, still has reference to something that exists in God, 
though not as an image, but as an opposite. In short, as God is 
the Origin and First Cause of all things, it is evident, that nothing 
whatever can exist which has not some sort of reference to some- 
thing that is in Him ; which reference is nearer or more remote, in 
proportion as the sphere in which it stands is nearer to the divine 
centre or to the extreme circumference of the universe. Thus 
things natural and material bear a secret Eelation to things moral 
and spiritual, and these again to things divine. 

1 . This will be seen yet more evidently when it is considered, 
that the proper mode of viewing the creation, is, to regard it as 
an Out-birth from the Deity ; — as a production essentially distinct 
from the Producing Cause, but necessarily bearing, through all its 
parts, to that Infinite Cause, and to the infinite essential properties 
and attributes existing in that Cause, a constant and immutable 
Eelation. Among the objects of the visible creation, man, the ac- 
knowledged image of his Maker, stands in the highest degree of 
this Eelation, and the inert substances of the mineral kingdom in 
the lowest. This truth is not invalidated by the fact, that the latter 
came first into existence. It must unquestionably be true, that, in 
the creation of the world, the globe of earth and water, or the 
unorganised parts of its composition, though lowest in rank, must 
have been the first that were formed : but why ? because their uses 
were indispensable to the higher orders of existence, to afford them 
nutriment and a basis. Then, doubtless, the vegetable kingdom 
succeeded, because, without both these, animals could not exist. 
Thus the higher orders of creatures must have appeared by degrees, 
and last of all man himself; as he could not begin to exist till 
every thing necessary for his use was provided. Still it was for 
the sake of man that all inferior things were produced : man was 
in the divine mind through the whole process : thus every thing 



76 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [lECT. 

produced was an image of something that was to exist in him, and 
the spiritual and moral essences of all inferior things were concen- 
trated iii him ; as he himself was to be an image of the Creator, in 
whom alone exist, in their first principles and divine essences, all 
the powers, faculties, and virtues, which were to exist derivatively 
in man. In fact, the Deity, in the work of creation, cannot be 
considered as operating at random, producing things which have 
not in himself their divine prototypes or grounds of being. To 
produce such things, the Creator must step out of Himself, which 
is impossible. As the tabernacle with every thing in it, which 
Moses was instructed to make, was to be made after the pattern 
or antitype shewn to him in the mount*, or was to be an outward 
type of such things as exist in heaven ; so, no doubt, when God 
created heaven and earth with their inhabitants, he formed every 
thing after the image of divine prototypes existing in himself; — 
after the pattern of the ineffable attributes and perfections which 
exist only in his own divine essence. Thus the whole universe, 
instead of being, as it is sometimes inconsiderately regarded, a pro- 
duction of mere caprice, little better than the offspring of blind 
chance, was, unquestionably, what may most expressively be called 
an Out-birth of the Deity: and if so, it must bear, in all its parts, 
an immutable Relation to the attributes or essential properties, 
which belong to the nature of that Omnipotent Being. 

2. If then the whole Universe is thus an Out-birth from the 
Deity, and hence bears, in all its parts, an immutable Relation to 
Him who gave it birth ; this Relation must be more immediately 
perceptible in the spiritual part of the creation. If, on all things 
that exist, the Divine Creator has stamped, in some mode or other, 
a certain image of himself, more especially must all things belong- 
ing to the moral, intellectual, and spiritual worlds, be marked 
with that image. We will endeavour to make this plain, by con- 
sidering the two most important particulars in which the divine 
image is stamped on man — the head of the visible creation : for 
extensive as this subject is in itself, it happily can be reduced to 
a few general principles ; and when these are distinctly seen, the 
immense multitude of particulars into which it diverges, will create 
no confusion. 

* Exod. xxv. 40; xxvi. 30. 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 77 

That there are two general principles to which all the infinities 
which compose the divine nature have reference, and to which, in 
like manner, all that man possesses by derivation and gift from his 
Maker have some relation, would be evident to any one who should 
deeply examine the subject : this, also, is pointed out by numerous 
passages of Scripture. Thus in the account of the origin of the 
human race, in the first chapter of Genesis, it is observable, that 
two terms are employed to describe the relation which man bears 
to God. It is not only said that man was proposed to be created 
in the image of God, but also in his likeness; evidently implying, 
unless we charge the sacred text with unmeaning tautology, that 
there are two general things in which man was designed to resem- 
ble his Maker. " God said, Let us make man in our image, after 
our likeness"* What are we to suppose is intended by the divine 
Word, when it manifestly points to two distinct things in which 
man was created a resemblance of his Creator? What can be 
intended, but an allusion to the same truth as philosophy also 
brings us acquainted with; — that man is formed with distinct 
faculties, designed for the reception of the two leading attributes 
which pre-eminently characterize the Divine Nature ? 

It is generally acknowledged, that the two leading attributes in 
the nature of the Deity, are Infinite Love and Infinite Wisdom, or, 
what amounts to the same, Infinite Goodness and Infinite Truth, 
— for what is Love, essentially, but Benevolence, and what is Bene- 
volence but Goodness? so, what is Wisdom but the possession and 
judicious application of Truth? That these are the two attributes 
which give the essential character to the divine nature, is so clear 
a truth, that it cannot be necessary to offer any proof of it ; other- 
wise arguments in confirmation of it might easily be drawn, both 
from the whole field of creation and the whole Word of God. If 
the Lord had not been essential Love, there never could have been 
any creation, since, otherwise, there could have been no motive 
capable of calling his creative energy into action. The Apostle 
accordingly tells us, in the plainest language, that " God is love*:" 
and the Lord Jesus Christ, by a most beautiful periphrasis, affirms 
the same truth, when he says, " Love your enemies, and do good, 
and lend, hoping for nothing again : and your reward shall be 
great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest ; for he is kind 
* Gen. i. 26. f 1 John iv. 8, 16. 



78 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

unto the unthankful and to the evil : be ye therefore merciful, as 
your Father also is merciful*:" — than which, there cannot be a 
more decisive assertion of the unbounded benevolence of the Divine 
Nature. 

But Love alone, though the prime mover of all things, is not 
sufficient for the production of a universe. By itself, it can do 
nothing. It wills, intends, and prompts : but before it can arrive 
at the ends it proposes, it must seek for means in another principle ; 
and no principle is capable of supplying such means, but Wisdom. 
Divine "Wisdom or Divine Truth, is what is specifically called in 
Scripture, " the Word," taking that name from the instrument of 
its enunciation : and of this it is said, " In the beginning was the 
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.— 
All things were made by him [or it] ; and without him [or it] was 
not any thing made that was madef:" — plainly teaching, that 
what is here called " the Word," which is easily seen to be the 
Divine Wisdom or Truth, is the immediate agent by which Divine 
Love acts in the production of all things. 

It will then, I trust, be readily admitted, that Infinite Love and 
Wisdom, in union, are the two most essential attributes of the 
Divine Nature. There are others, indeed, such as Omnipotence 
and Omnipresence, which, in one respect, are equally essential, 
since, without them, God would be a limited Being : yet even into 
these, the former enter, and give them their peculiar quality. Thus 
the Divine Omnipotence, we may be certain, can never be exerted 
for any other object, than to give effect to the designs of Divine 
Love and AVisdom ; and thus the Divine Love and Wisdom are, in 
fact, the essence of the Divine Omnipotence : in other words, Infi- 
nite Power is nothing but the capacity of irresistible exertion, in- 
herently belonging to Infinite Love and Wisdom. We should find 
all the other divine attributes as closely connected with, and equally 
dependent upon, these two. 

Now the first being in the scale of the visible creation, — the 
most exalted of the visible works of the Creator, is man : and he is 

* Luke vi. 35, 36. 

t John i. 1, 3. I have added the words [or it], because if the Divine Truth 
be considered as a distinct attribute or essential property of the Being in whom 
it is, it must be considered, in English, as of the neuter gender. The original 
admits equally of either mode of translation. 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 79 

such, because he was created iu the image and likeness of God. 
That he might be capable of being such an image, he was endowed 
with two faculties designed for the reception of love and wisdom 
from his Maker. These are known by the names of the will and 
the understanding ; the will being designed for the reception of the 
Divine Love or Good, and the understanding for the reception of 
the Divine Wisdom or Truth. I am aware, that although the an- 
cient metaphysicians universally adopted this most general division 
of the human faculties, some of the moderns have doubted its cor- 
rectness, and have been disposed to resolve the whole into intellec- 
tual powers alone : none however could deny that man was possessed 
of passions: and all the passions belong to the general faculty 
called the will : at least, however some may explain them, it is as 
the seat of the passions, all of which belong to some species or other 
of love, that we here speak of the will. I have also been somewhat 
surprised, on observing that the new philosophic sect who take the 
name of Phrenologists, though continually at war with the meta- 
physicians, and rejecting with contempt the idea that all the facul- 
ties of the mind are to be resolved into intellect, still disapprove 
the division into understanding and will; though nothing can be 
plainer than that all the faculties of which the Phrenologists make 
the mind to consist, are only specific divisions of these two general 
ones : thus all those faculties which they designate as " propensi- 
ties" and "sentiments," and which, they justly affirm, have nothing 
to do with pure intellect, belong to the province of the will ; and 
those which they designate as "knowing" and "reflecting facul- 
ties," as clearly belong to the province of the understanding. Ee- 
specting the latter, there can be no dispute; nor yet, I should 
think, respecting the former, if it be considered, that all the facul- 
ties to which they give the name of propensities and sentiments, 
may be resolved into some species of love. Now a man assuredly 
wills whatever he loves : and thus every species of love that can 
have an abode in his mind, may with philosophical truth be con- 
sidered as belonging to a certain general faculty, which is most 
correctly denominated the Will. The mistake seems to have arisen, 
from confounding this general faculty, by which we are only in- 
clined to certain actions, with the determination to action, which is 
the result of the operations of the will and understanding together ; 
and which takes place, when man, by his understanding, sees a fit 



80 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

opportunity of doing the acts, to which his will perpetually inclines 
him. Undoubtedly, then, the old general division of the mental 
powers into understanding and will, so long established by the 
consent of all the reflecting part of mankind, is destined to resume 
its authority in the schools of philosophy : because it owed its long 
reign there, not to the caprice of human fancy, but to its firm 
foundation in the unalterable nature of things. 

Now the will and understanding of man are a certain image, 
however faint and feeble, of the Will and Intellect Divine ; and the 
more perfectly so, in proportion as man receives in his will the love 
and goodness of the Lord, and, in his understanding, the divine 
wisdom and truth. When man wills what the Lord wills, and 
when the perceptions and thoughts of his understanding flow in 
agreement with the divine truth ; — thus when he receives the affec- 
tions of his will, and the perceptions of his understanding, without 
perversion, from the infinite fountain of all goodness and wisdom in 
God; — then is he an image and likeness of God indeed. And 
even when he entirely perverts his noble endowments : when he 
makes the ruling affections of his will such as are entirely opposite 
to the divine love and goodness, and when he adopts in his under- 
standing a tissue of false notions quite contrary to the divine wis- 
dom and truth ; he still, in the faculties of will and understanding 
themselves, retains an image, though an inverted one, of his Divine 
Original : and the relation is farther preserved in this respect, that 
the will still remains the seat of love, though it is the love of evil, 
which he accounts his good, and his understanding still continues 
the seat of his ideas, though these are ideas of error, which he 
accounts his truth. In the way of opposition, he still bears a rela- 
tion to his Maker : his faculties of will and understanding, and the 
subjects of each respectively, still are to him, what pure love and 
wisdom are to God : a general image remains, however inverted 
and distorted. 

As then it is evident, that, in the leading feature of the moral, 
intellectual, and spiritual part of the head of the visible creation, 
man, the Divine Creator has thus first stamped a certain image of 
Himself; there can be no reasonable doubt that the same is true 
in regard to all the particulars of the moral, intellectual, and 
spiritual worlds. The endless varieties of such things that exist, 
can only be images, either in direct or in inverted order, of the 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 81 

infinite divine perfections that are in God. In Him, all have their 
essence or inward ground of being : To Him, they all have an 
immutable Eelation : So far as they are in order, they are tran- 
scripts of something that is in Him ; and even when in disorder, 
they point to something in Him of which they are the perversion : 
In all the phenomena, then, of the moral, intellectual, and spiritual 
worlds which come under our inspection, we might, had we capa- 
cities for such discernment, read, as in an image, the divine things 
to which they owe their first birth. 

3. But the images of divine things that are presented to our 
observation, are not confined to the phsenomena of the moral, intel- 
lectual, and spiritual worlds : they descend much lower, and dis- 
play themselves, though under a totally different form, on all the 
objects of outward and material nature : first, on the corporeal part 
of man himself; next, on all the inferior animals; then on the vege- 
table creation ; and lastly, on the inert mass of earth and water 
which forms the lowest plane of all ; not to mention the sublime 
exhibitions of the same which are presented in the phsenomena of 
the starry heavens. It is not then, merely by a poetical figure that 
David calls upon all such things to praise the Lord, but in re- 
ference to the wisdom concerning him, of which they are the silent 
teachers : "Praise ye hirn, sun and moon, praise him all ye stars of 
light : Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be 
above the heavens : — Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons 
and all deeps ; fire and hail, snow and vapours, stormy wind ful- 
filling his word; mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all 
cedars; beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying fowl."* 
And I have little doubt that Paul meant to refer to the same fact 
when he said, " The invisible things of God, from the creation of 
the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are 
made ; even his eternal power and Godheadf ;" though I do not 
quote this as a proof, because the words may be understood in the 
merely common and popular sense. 

(1.) We will again illustrate the subject by an example taken 

from man. As man has two faculties in his mind which image 

forth, in an eminent manner, the two greatest essential properties 

of his Creator ; so has he also two organs in his body, which, more 

* Ps. cxlviii. 3, 4, 7 to 1 0. f R° m - *• 20. 

4* 



82 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

remotely, have trie same relation : answering, however, more im- 
mediately, to the two great faculties of his mind. These two bodily 
organs are the heart and the lungs. As it is on his will and under- 
standing that the life of his spiritual part depends ; so is it on the 
heart and lungs that the life of his corporeal frame depends. What 
the will and understanding are to the mind, the heart and lungs 
are to the body ; they answer to them in a lower sphere : they are 
exact images of them. It is on this account that so frequent men- 
tion is made, in Sacred Writ, of the heart and soul. It is well 
known that the word " soul," in the Scriptures, especially in those 
of the Old Testament, where it most frequently occurs, does not, 
as in English, mean the spirit which lives after death, but merely 
the animating principle or life, and this because its primary mean- 
ing is breath : and of breathing, the lungs are the organ. When 
the soul then is mentioned in conjunction with the heart, it strictly 
refers to the breath respired by the lungs ; and the combined phrase 
refers, in the language of analogy, to those faculties of the mind, 
of which the heart and lungs are images in the body. 

But not only are there two general organs in the body, answer- 
ing to the two leading faculties of the mind, but the whole body 
itself is made up of two principal constituent materials ; which are, 
the flesh and blood. These again, then, bear a relation, though 
still more remote, to the two great constituents of the Divine 
Nature : it is primarily because there are two of these, that there 
are two of those : hence also so much mention is made of flesh and 
blood in the Divine Word, which, we shall eventually find, con- 
stantly speaks in terms borrowed from the Relation which we are 
endeavouring to establish. 

As, again, the human body is composed of solids and fluids, or 
of flesh and blood, it is necessary, for its support, that it be nou- 
rished by aliment of both kinds, or by meat and drink. All meats 
and drinks, then, have the same general relation to the great attri- 
butes of Deity, as is borne by the constituent substances of the 
human body, by its two vital organs, and, in the mind, by the will 
and understanding : but their specific reference is to the love and 
wisdom, or goodness and truth, which are imparted by the Divine 
Author of all good to support man's spiritual life : for the human 
mind is nourished by the reception of goodness and truth from 
their origin in Him, as the body is by its appropriate food and 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 83 

drink: thus natural food and drink are proper images of the 
spiritual. 

The same analogy is continued, even till we come to the most 
shapeless masses of inanimate matter. Thus the terraqueous globe 
in general consists, in like manner, of two general parts, which are 
earth and water. Indeed, it would be difficult to find any thing, 
through the whole circuit of creation, both in general and in par- 
ticular, which is not composed of two principal constituent parts. 
In man, for instance, and all animals, there are two sexes : and not 
only are they thus, in general, arranged in pairs, but all the parts 
of each shew an extraordinary tendency to run in pairs also. Thus, 
in the face, there are two eyes, two ears, two nostrils ; in the body, 
two breasts, two arms and hands, two legs and feet. So likewise 
the internal organs exhibit the same two-fold bias. There are two 
great divisions of the brain, so distinct, that anatomists describe 
them by separate names : the heart is divided into its ventricles 
and auricles, of each of which, again, there are two : the sanguine- 
ous system dependent upon the heart has also its two marked 
distinctions of arteries and veins. So there are two lobes of the 
lungs, two kidneys, &c. And the parts which appear as single, 
nevertheless, in general, consist of two portions, united by a 
common covering : and many, whose form does not admit of this, 
are composed of two halves answering to each other : thus, though 
the mouth, all together, is a single organ, the teeth on each side 
form a series of pairs; and even its outward opening is not only 
formed by two lips, but if these be considered as divided in the 
middle by a perpendicular line, they each present two parts sym- 
metrically answering to each other : and the same may be observed 
in the tongue. 

Now since this tendency to a twofold arrangement acts so 
powerfully throughout creation, that we cannot turn our eyes in 
any direction without seeing it every where presented before them : 
does not true philosophy lead us to refer the phsenomenon to some 
universally acting cause? and what canse can be adequate to the 
production of such continually uniform effects, but a marked duality 
of essential properties in the First Cause of all? Admit, what 
cannot easily be denied, that Goodnesss and Truth, in their very 
essence, are Deity Itself, and we cannot be surprised to find cir- 
cumstances pointing to that fact through all the fields of creation ; 



84 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

— to behold them exhibited more directly in the moral and spiritual 
productions of the divine plastic hand, as in the will and under- 
standing of man, and imaged not less truly, though more remotely, 
in the objects of material and even inanimate nature. And if these 
leading traits in all existing things bear a secret Eelation to the 
leading characteristics of the Divine Nature, it would be unphiloso- 
phical to doubt that a similiar Relation prevails in all other respects 
whatever. Most true it must be, that the Creator has stamped a 
certain image of Himself on his creation, both on the whole, and 
on every, even the minutest part. Although this shines most 
plainly in man, it must be visible, to the attentive observer, in all 
the inferior orders of existence. All must be types, of which the 
archetype is in God. 

(2.) But that all the inferior parts of creation present a more 
remote but not less real image of the Divine Creator, will still more 
indisputably appear from another consideration. That man himself 
presents such an image, is unquestionably agreeable to the purest 
dictates of reason ; and to the believers in Eevelation, it is placed 
beyond doubt by the authoritative declarations of Scrip ture. But 
if man is an image of God, most evident also, it is, that the lower 
orders of creation, in then respective degrees, bear the same image; 
for the most cursory inspection will shew, that they all present, in 
a certain manner, an image of man. How strong is the tendency 
to the human form, for example, which is observable among all the 
subjects of the animal kingdom ; and even, though more remotely, 
among all the subjects of the vegetable kingdom likewise ! The 
animals which differ most in their external shape from man, have, 
nevertheless, most of the organs which are found in the human 
body, — especially those which are most essential to life; though 
all display them under endless varieties. All have heads, bodies, 
feet : in their heads are eyes, noses, mouths, ears ; and in their 
bodies, hearts, lungs, and the other viscera. As the animal de- 
scends in the scale of existence, the resemblance becomes less per- 
fect ; yet most of the species retain the principal organs ; and 
where these cease, their place is supplied by something analogous, 
which performs their office in a manner suited to the animal's 
nature. 

So, again, the similitude between the animal and vegetable 
kingdoms, — the Mutual Eelation which they bear to each other, — 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 85 

is in many respects very conspicuous. They melt into each other 
by such imperceptible degrees, that there are animals whose sensi- 
tive powers are not much greater than those of vegetables, and 
there are vegetables which exhibit such an approximation to sensa- 
tion, as renders the propriety of assigning them to the vegetable 
kingdom almost a matter of doubt. But even those which most 
decidedly belong to this province of nature, exhibit in a remarkable 
manner their affinity to the animal kingdom : they display, under 
another form, some of the most important attributes of the latter. 
Not only are they, in common with animals, animated by a decided 
principle of life, — are propagated from parents, grow from an ob- 
scure germ to maturity, flourish in vigour, provide for the con- 
tinuance of their species, decline, and die — sometimes from disease, 
and sometimes by the mere agency of time ; but their life is main- 
tained in an exactly analogous manner. Trees, and indeed all 
vegetables, circulate sap, which is their blood, through vessels 
answering to arteries and veins, from their root, which answers to 
the heart : and they inhale and respire air through pores in their 
leaves, which perform for them the office of lungs. And the de- 
velopment of their sexual system, by Linnaeus, has brought to light 
other wonderful analogies. The discoveries of modern science have 
even gone farther, not only establishing general analogies between 
all animals and all vegetables taken respectively together, but be- 
tween particular classes of animals and particular classes of vegeta- 
bles* ; and thus leading to the conclusion, that every individual 
species in the vegetable kingdom has a species answering to it in 
the animal kingdom ; or, that certain vegetables are, in their king- 
dom, what certain animals are in theirs, discharging like functions 
in regard to the whole. 

Similar observations may be made in regard to the mineral 
kingdom. Here, also, extraordinary analogies may be traced, and 
a tendency to offer an image of the higher orders of creation may 
be observed ; although, owing to the inert nature of the substances 
of this kingdom, it is not exhibited in so palpable a manner. It is 
well known, however, how many mineral productions there are, 
which, when left to assume, without constraint, the forms most 

* See " Remarks on the identity of certain general Laws, which have been 
lately observed to regulate the natural distribution of Insects and Fungi;" by 
"W. S. Mac Leay, Esq , M.A., F.L.S., Linncean Transactions, Vol. xiv., Pt. 1, p. 46. 



86 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

agreeable to their nature, seem to extricate themselves from their 
originally unplastic state, and aspire towards the kingdom imme- 
diately above them, emulating so exactly the vegetable shape, that, 
judging by this test alone, it would be difficult to determine to 
which province of nature they belong. But look again at the 
image of the circulation of the blood, and thus of the animal 
creation, which is exhibited in the globe we inhabit. No one can 
inspect the map of an extensive country, and the plates represent- 
ing the venous system of the human body in- works on Anatomy, 
without being struck by the similarity of form between the rivers 
in the one, and the veins in the other : both rise from innumerable 
minute origins, wander through an infinity of small channels, 
which diminish in number and increase in size as they successively 
coalesce, till they unite in a common trunk which carries them to 
their final goal. Nor is this an analogy that is only such to the eye. 
We have before observed, that the water is to the terraqueous globe 
what the blood is to the body : so, they both are circulated 
throughout the whole in an analogous manner, though by very dif- 
ferent means. While the heart, by its extraordinary vicissitudes 
of contraction and expansion, performs this work for the animated 
frame of man and animals, distributing the blood by the arteries to 
nourish every part of the body, and recalling it by the veins ; the 
mysterious economy of alternate evaporation and condensation ac- 
complishes the same task for the insensible frame of the world : 
By this are the waters raised from their great storehouse, the ocean, 
transported by the clouds, which execute the office of the arterial 
system, to the parts where their fertilizing agency is required, dis- 
charged in showers to irrigate the soil, collected again by the rivers 
as an immense system of veins, and so carried back to their 
common reservoir, to be thrown again and again, as long as time 
shall endure, through the same circulation. Now, to borrow the 
phraseology of an eminent scientific writer*, there is no proper 
affinity between man and animals, and still less between man and 
vegetables, minerals, and inert globes of earth and water : but who 
can observe these and a thousand other wonderful coincidences, 
without being satisfied that a regular and certain analogy reigns 
between them all ? Who cannot see, that all the inferior objects 

* Mr. Mac Leay, in the Paper above referred to, and in his work entitled, 
Horce EntomologicoB. 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 87 

that exist, present an image of man, or of something that is in man, 
and thus, remotely and derivatively, an image of God, or of some- 
thing in him ? 

(3.) We have now, however, been considering the analogy be- 
tween the lower objects of the creation and man, chiefly in regard to 
their physical organization or constitution, and have only pointed 
to their relation to spiritual and divine things through the analogy 
observable between the general constitution of the body of man, 
and that of his mind. But, doubtless, there is a more immediate 
analogy also: Not only may a relation be traced between the 
physical powers and forms of man, animals, vegetables, and 
minerals, which is such that the lower seems constantly to emulate 
the higher ; but between the mind of man, what may be called the 
moral qualities of animals, and the essential properties of vegeta- 
bles and minerals, a not less decided analogy may be observed. 
Thus, all animals universally are guided by certain general appetites 
and instincts, not dissimilar to those which belong to the inferior 
part of the human constitution. And not only are the propensities 
which lead them to provide for their own support by food, and for 
the continuation of their species, similar, in a general way, to the 
same propensities in man, but, in regard to the latter, some of them 
even recede from the grossness of brutes, and shame the brutal 
part of the human race, by forming conjugal engagements ap- 
proaching to the tenderness and purity of married love : whilst, 
with respect to attachment for their offspring, and the care with 
which they provide for its welfare, even the most ferocious species 
emulate the maternal affection of the most exemplary human 
parent. In other respects, also, there are animals which exhibit 
feelings so nearly approximating to moral qualities, and instincts 
which so accurately imitate reason, that some who would be 
deemed philosophers have denied there to be any essential differ- 
ence, and have asserted that nothing but speech is wanting to 
identify their nature with that of man. 

In these particulars, then, between man and animals generally, 
there is evidently a common analogy; and it is equally certain, 
that there is a similar analogy between every species of animal, in 
particular, and something that is in man. For while all animals 
have certain common appetites and instincts in which they agree, 
they all have particular ones in which they differ. How great is 



S3 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

the contrariety of character between the wolf and the lamb, the lion 
and the ox ! Yet how easy is it to see, that the character of each 
is thus distinct, because it is formed by some specific affection, taken, 
as it were, out of the human mind, and made the single governing- 
propensity of the animal, without being modified by the innumer- 
able variety of other affections, with which, in that wonderful ag- 
gregate of affections, the human mind, it is combined ! That in 
the human mind are accumulated all the various affections, which, 
when separated, give a distinct nature to so many species of 
animals, is evident from the cases sometimes observed, in which 
one such affection is, in man, so much more powerfully developed 
than others, as strongly to mark his character. Thus, where pure 
benevolence and harmlessness pre-eminently reign, how readily do 
we recognize the moral features of the lamb ! where general meek- 
ness and unsuspecting honesty, not so devoid of irascibility, prevail, 
we discover the temper of the ox ; where a tendency to rapine and 
cruelty continually bursts forth, we note the characteristic of the 
wolf; and in the nature still prone to deeds of destruction, but 
exalted by courage and pre-eminent power, we trace a resemblance 
of the lion. Similitudes of this kind are familiar to every observer 
of nature. Were not their truth generally perceived, poetry would 
want many of its most striking beauties : and the use in poetry of 
images borrowed hence, could excite no sympathies in the mind of 
the reader, were they not founded in the fixed laws of nature. 
We see clearly, that, on some animals, in regard to what may be 
called their moral qualities, is stamped a decided image of certain 
moral qualities existing in the human mind: and were we fully 
acquainted with the leading moral quality of every species of 
animal, we should see that every species of animal derives its 
proximate origin from that to which it thus answers in the human 
mind, and bears of it the mark. Hence, also, animals are images, 
though more remotely, of those principles in the Divine Miud from 
which every thing that exists in the human mind is a faint tran- 
script; only we must here recollect, what has before been remarked, 
that there is a relation of opposites, as well as of direct resemblances. 
Certainly, nothing evil and mischievous can bear a relation or 
analogy to anything in the Divine Mind, any otherwise, than as it 
is the perversion of something intrinsically good. There are many 
such perversions in the corrupt mind of man; and all things 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. S9 

noxious in nature are directly images of these, and only inversely 
of the opposite perfections in the Divine Nature. 

(4.) But perhaps it may be asked, If the whole Universe, as 
advanced above, is an Out-birth from the Deity ; and if every thing 
so produced has in Him its divine prototype and ground of being ; 
how came any thing to be created whose relation to Him is merely 
that of an opposite ? It may be answered, Because, though every 
inferior creature has its divine prototype in God, it has, as is also 
stated above, its immediate antitype in man : if then man, by the 
abuse of the freedom of will with which he was endowed, perverted 
the divine gifts which he had received, and introduced evil into 
himself, images of such perversion and evil, by the continued action 
of the Divine Creative Power, would speedily appear in the lower 
objects of creation. There can be no doubt, as declared in the 
beginning of Genesis, that all things, as they first came from the 
Divine Hand, were good: and perhaps it may be questioned, 
whether any thing that now exists is so purely evil, as not to be 
capable of being divested of its malignant properties. The letter 
of Scripture seems to affirm that it may, when it says, in reference, 
to a future glorious state of the Church and its members, " The 
wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with 
the kid ; and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together ; 
and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall 
feed, their young ones shall lie down together ; and the lion shall 
eat straw, like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the 
hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the 
cockatrice' den."* If we suppose that by the harmless animals 
and the infants here mentioned, are typified the good, benevolent, 
and innocent affections of the human mind, and by the noxious 
animals, such appetites and propensities, as, when not controlled 
by the former, are of a destructive nature; and if, by their all 
dwelling together, we conceive to be meant, the depriving of the 
latter of their pernicious tendencies by the complete preponderance 
of the former ; we have a spiritual sense which certainly teaches a 
most important moral lesson, conveyed in language most striking 
and impressive. To dwell, however, upon this, now, would be to 
anticipate the argument to which we are to proceed by and by : I 
here mention the circumstance to shew, that if there is an evident 
* Is. xi 6, 7, 8. 



90 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

analogy between the noxious animals, in the state in which they at 
present exist, and the evil propensities and passions of human 
nature, the Scripture, when pointing to a state in which the lower 
appetites and propensities of man shall be divested of their inju- 
rious nature by the preponderance of the higher sentiments, pre- 
serves the analogy between them and the same animals, by describ- 
ing the latter as laying aside their destructive tendencies. If the 
present species of animals all existed from the beginning, it is 
certain that some of them must have been greatly altered when evil 
established itself in the human mind. As all evil is nothing but 
the perversion of the lower propensities of our nature, which by 
creation were good, the animals which were created as represen- 
tative forms of those affections could not at first have been noxious; 
but they might begin to be so when those affections in man suf- 
fered perversion. Hence it may be true, as the poet sings, that 

" Thus began 
Outrage from lifeless things : but Discord first, 
Daughter of Sin, among th' irrational, 
Death introduced, thro' fierce antipathy. 
Beast now with beast 'gan war, and fowl with fowl, 
And fish with fish : to graze the herb, all leaving, 
Devour'd each other ; nor stood much in awe 
Of man, but fled him, or, with count'nance grim, 
Glared on him passing." 

And if this was the origin of the noxious nature in beasts, it 
cannot be doubted, were mankind to return to a state such as is 
spiritually described in the passage just quoted from the prophet, 
in which all the lower appetites and propensities were strictly 
subordinated to the higher, that the words of the prophet would 
have a literal fulfilment likewise, and all animals would again 
become innocuous. But in any case it is certain, that could evil 
be removed from the moral world, it would cease in the natural 
world also, and destructive creatures would no longer exist. If it 
should be deemed unphilosophical to suppose that those now in 
being would change their nature, to which their physical organi- 
zation is so accurately adapted, it is perfectly agreeable to the dis- 
coveries of science to conclude, that they would cease to exist 
altogether ; since it is well ascertained, from the organic remains 
found in the bowels of the earth, that many species, and even whole 
genera, of animals and plants once common, are now no longer 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 91 

known; and, conversely, that many of those now common were 
strangers to the primeval ages : thus, having commenced their ex- 
istence since the beginning of the world, they may relinquish it 
again before the end. It may then be safely concluded, since 
nothing noxious can have its direct prototype in God, that all such 
things either first acquired their noxious nature, or first began to 
exist, when evil established itself in the human mind ; that they 
are properly the images of the depraved propensities which there 
have their seat ; and that if moral evil coidd be banished from the 
world, these expressive images of it would either lose those qualities 
which make them such, or would disappear altogether. 

(5.) But to return from this digression; which however was 
necessary to meet a seeming difficulty. It surely must be readily 
admitted, when fairly contemplated, that the analogy between what 
may be called, in a qualified sense, the moral qualities of animals 
and the affections of the human mind, is very obvious and striking; 
and it cannot be difficult to discover a similiar analogy between 
both of these and the properties of the objects belonging to the 
vegetable and mineral kingdoms. How closely are the common 
appetites and instincts, which in animals are subservient to the 
preservation of the individuals and of the species, emulated in the 
vegetable creation ! In these, as in those, the life of the individuals 
is sustained by supplies of nourishment from without. They are 
provided with sets of vessels, which draw from the soil in which 
they grow, and from the air which surrounds them, those juices 
and gases which are congenial with their nature ; and these they 
select, while they reject such as would be pernicious, with a dis- 
crimination which, though void of all consciousness, answers to, 
and exactly pictures, under another form, the instinct in regard to 
these objects so wonderful in animals. So, in the mode by which 
the continuation of the species is provided for, there is so much 
that seems to rival the attachments of animals, that Poetry, with 
one of her usual exaggerations, has attempted to abolish the differ- 
ence, by selecting as a theme, " the Loves of the Plants*," and Paint- 
ing has carried on the thought, by representing the fabled Deity 
of the tender passion subduing the vegetable kingdom also to his 
sway, and levelling his arrows at the susceptible breasts of flowers.f 

* By Dr. Darwin. 

f See a print in Dr. Thornton's Illustrations of Linnseus's Sexual System. 



92 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

And how exact an analogy of the same universal impulses is dis- 
played through the mineral kingdom also ! By how marvellous a 
power, resembling the animal appetite for food, do many minerals 
draw from surrounding substances the materials of their accumula- 
tion ! How completely magical ; how similiar to the exercise of 
affection and choice, is the action of chemical affinities ! How 
striking an image of conscious attachment is presented, when, under 
the influence of the mysterious principle just mentioned, we behold 
inanimate matters, — substances not possessed even of vegetative 
life, rush into union, as if actuated by the most ardent mutual affec- 
tion ! 

But not to dwell on these common resemblances, which assu- 
redly tend very conclusively to establish the continual Mutual Re- 
lation, or Eelation of Analogy, between all the various orders of 
creation ; who cannot see a similar analogy between specific moral 
qualities, the animals in which such qualities are imaged, and the 
properties of specific vegetables and minerals? Between all the 
productions of the vegetable kingdom that afford pleasant and 
wholesome nutriment, for example, — the mild races of animals 
which are of similar use to man, and the good moral qualities of 
which these are the pictures, how plainly does this relation exist ! 
and, on the other hand, how close is the analogy between noxious 
plants, noxious animals, and the malignant moral qualities which 
these so aptly typify ! To descend to particulars would carry us 
into too wide a field ; otherwise, numerous confirmatory instances 
might easily be pointed out. The substances of the mineral king- 
dom not affording food to man, their particular relation to the 
objects of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and finally to moral 
qualities, cannot so evidently be shewn; but that every specific 
substance of unorganized nature has also properties peculiar to it, 
which, though quite different from those of vegetables and animals, 
and especially from the feelings and sentiments of the human mind, 
are yet exactly analogous to them ; is a truth which a little re- 
search would easily establish. But Nature herself, by bringing 
together the aualogous objects of her different kingdoms, often calls 
upon us to note their mutual relation, — to observe how, in their 
respective spheres, they answer to each other. Head, for instance, 
the description of the Great Western Desart of North America, 
that occupies hundreds of miles, both in length and breadth, of the 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 93 

territory that lies between the great rivers Mississippi and Missouri 
and the Rocky Mountains, and which has lately been explored by a 
mission despatched for the purpose by the government of the 
United States.* Of this frightful district it is related, (I quote 
from the Quarterly Review,) that "In patches where vegetation 
shews itself, it is mostly confined to tufts of withered grass, prickly 
pears, and those succulent and saline plants which can derive sub- 
sistence out of the most arid, sandy, and sterile soils. Two species 
of cactus are described as most formidable plants, the cactus ferox 
and the cactus cylindricus. The former is stated to reign sole 
monarch over myriads of acres of these desolate plains, in patches, 
which neither a horse nor any other animal will venture to pass. — 
The latter grows singly, and forms a cluster by itself, increasing to 
such a size, that, seen from a distance, it is frequently mistaken for 
a bison. The whole plant is so thickly beset with spines that it 
forbids all approach to it, either by man or beast." f Respecting 
the animated tenants of the more southern part of this horrid 
desart, it is stated, that " Clouds of locusts filled the air, uttering 
shrill and deafening cries; while the Mississippi-hawk, wheeling 
through their ranks, seemed to enjoy his favourite prey; rattle- 
snakes of various kinds, and scolopendras of enormous size, were 
crawling on the naked surface ; and immense black, hairy spiders, 
like the bird catching animal of South America (mygale avicularia), 
watching for prey at the mouth of their subterranean habitations."! 
Who can read this frightful account, without being struck by the 
homogeneity of character, so apparent between the unkindly soil 
and its pernicious products, both vegetable and animal? "Who is 
not led unconsciously to feel, that there is a decided analogy be • 
tween the characteristic nature of each and those of its accompani- 
ments? Who does not spontaneously infer, that the barren ground, 
the horrid thorns, and the venomous reptiles, mutually answer to 
each other ? And who does not see in them all, striking emblems, 
and even exact images, of the malignant passions, such as prompt 
to shoot the poisoned darts of calumny, and to stab with unjust 
reproaches ? — of a disposition, such as would pervert even the sun- 
shine and rain of heaven into food for those passions ? 

* Detailed in the " Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky- 
Mountains, &c. r ' by E. James. 

f Quarterly Review, No. lvii., p. 16. % Ibid, p 23. 



94 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

But we must not dwell any longer on these illustrations. As 
we have before plainly seen, that on all things belonging to the 
moral, intellectual, and spiritual worlds the Divine Creator has 
first stamped a certain image of Himself; so enough may now 
have been stated to evince, that all objects of outward and even ma- 
terial nature, bear an image of the moral, intellectual, and spiritual 
world of the human mind, representing its bad as well as its excel- 
lent endowments : and thus we plainly see that on these also the 
divine image is impressed, though sometimes in an inverted and 
distorted rather than in a direct and beautiful order. Through all 
the links of creation, lower things continually answer to higher; 
and the contemplation of them in this light is indeed calculated to 
"lead from nature up to nature's God." Whilst, through all their 
varieties, minerals are seen to answer to vegetables, vegetables to 
animals, and animals to man ; and whilst man is recognized as 
having been created in the image and likeness of God ; we see how 
the attributes of the highest natures may be viewed, as in a mirror, 
in the lowest : we discern how close is the tie which binds together 
the whole universe of being : we behold how things invisible may 
be read in the things which are seen. The Relation of Analogy 
thus every where existing, makes the volume of nature an instruc- 
tive book indeed. In a stricter sense than the poet ever dreamed 
of, he who thus views the fields of creation 

" Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing." 

4. Concluding that it must now be pretty evident, that all things 
in Nature, being, as we have seen, outward productions from in- 
ward essences, are natural, sensible, and material types, of moral, 
intellectual, and spiritual antitypes, and, finally, of their prototypes 
in God ; we draw a step nearer to the important object before us, 
which is, to shew that a Law or Eule of universal application is 
hereby afforded for the interpretation of the Word of God. We 
will here only remark further, that if such an analogy as we have 
pointed out exists at all, it must be regular and constant ; that the 
mutual relation between natural types and spiritual antitypes must 
be immutable ; if therefore the Scriptures are written in agreement 
with this analogy or mutual relation, the interpretations drawn 
from an adequate knowledge of it cannot be irregular or uncertain. 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 95 

The doctrine of spiritual interpretation will thus be freed from the 
only objection by which it could be reasonably impugned. 

III. Seeing then that a Eelation of Analogy so decidedly pre- 
vails among the various orders of existences in the universe, inso- 
much that inferior things are, universally, images of superior, and 
that all material things are types of immaterial ; it will follow, that 
were this Eelation well understood, a style of writing might be 
constructed, in which, while none but natural images were used, 
purely intellectual ideas should be most fully expressed : indeed it 
will be evident, that even a narrative in appearance the most 
simple, treating, in its literal expression, merely of the objects of 
nature, if framed by that Infinite Knowledge to which the proper 
qualities of natural objects all lie displayed, and which sees infal- 
libly of what spiritual antitypes these are the types, might include 
lessons of wisdom far beyond all that philosophy ever reached. 

1. Now that such a Eelation exists, and that such a truly ex- 
pressive style of writing might be framed by its means, are, in a 
great measure, intuitively perceived by all mankind. To be satis- 
fied of this, we need only advert to a few instances which are 
familiar to us all ; which prove, that although the existence of an 
analogy immutably established by the laws of nature between 
natural images and spiritual essences, may seem new to us when 
first we hear it distinctly affirmed, this is only for want of having 
made it a subject of reflection ; whilst we have at the same time, a 
natural consciousness of it, which gives birth to many of our con- 
clusions, and is the origin of many forms of speech in common 
use. 

(1.) In regard to the conclusions which we draw from it: 
"What is better known, for example, to every human being, than 
that the face is, in a very great degree, an index of the mind, and 
that it would be most completely such, did not man often endea- 
vour to conceal what is passing within, and thus to give an expres- 
sion to his countenance which is foreign to the sentiments of his 
heart ? What is more common, when we first see a stranger, than 
to form an opinion in regard to the dispositions of his mind from 
certain marks of character which we see written in his face ? And 
though, for the reason just mentioned, we are here liable to be 



96 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

mistaken, this experience does not prevent us from deducing such 
conclusions altogether, but only from depending on them too much : 
a person's looks invariably make some impression upon us, and we 
continually find ourselves apt to draw from them some prejudice 
or prepossession. 

But although we are liable to mistake in the opinion we thus 
form of the general character, we can scarcely err in deciding what 
are the affections which at any time reign in a person's mind, when 
he is under circumstances that affect him very strongly. None 
but the most accomplished hypocrite can prevent us from discover- 
ing what are the feelings which agitate his breast, when they are 
under any very powerful excitement. Who cannot tell whether a 
person is angry or pleased, buoyed up by hope or weighed down 
by despair, melted by pity or inflamed with rage, merely by ob- 
serving the lineaments of his countenance ? But these discoveries 
of the interior emotions of the mind from the exterior form of the 
face, would be utterly impossible, did there not exist a certain 
relation between things spiritual and things natural, — between the 
spiritual things which exist in the mind and the natural appear- 
ances which the face assumes. It is from this origin alone that the 
invisible things of the mind become visible in the countenance: 
the higher flows into the lower, and moulds it in an instant into a 
form, which, Nature teaches us all, is the image of itself. Yet 
what two things can be more distinct than the mind and the face ! 
Great disputes have divided the schools respecting the part of the 
system in which the mind holds her court; but none have dreamed 
of placing her seat in the face : yet in the face, unquestionably, 
much of the mind is to be seen; and all who there read her 
emotions, view a branch of the analogy between the things mater- 
rial and immaterial, and testify to the fact, that of this, in many 
respects, man has an intuitive perception. 

(2.) But to state a few of the instances in which this perception 
is the origin of forms of speech in common use. 

What is more common with mankind, than to use such forms 
of expression as these : " I see what you meau : what you have 
observed throws a great light on the subject ; it must convince all 
who will take a candid vieio of the question, and look at it in all its 
bearings." And whenever we thus express ourselves, we acknow- 
ledge the existence of a fixed relation between natural things and 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 97 

spiritual ; otherwise we should never talk of seeing, taking a mere, 
and looking at, which are the actions of a bodily sense, and of light, 
which is a natural object, in reference to the operations of the 
mind : but we speak in this manner, because we are inwardly sen- 
sible, that the sight of the bodily eye answers to the sight of the 
mental eye, which is the perception of the understanding ; and that 
the light of the natural world answers to the light of the moral 
world, which is truth : thus when we say we see that a thing is so, 
we mean that we understand it ; and when we add that a light is 
thrown upon a subject, we mean that the truth respecting it is 
rendered evident. Again : What is more common than to speak of 
a warm affection, a burning desire ; or, when we behold a person 
eager in any pursuit, to say, that he is all on fire ? Yet such forms 
of speech would be quite destitute of meaning, unless there does 
actually exist a regular relation of analogy between things spiritual 
and things natural, — between natural heat, which is that of fire, 
and spiritual heat, which is that of love : thus intensity of love is 
what we always mean when we thus speak, metaphorically, of heat, 
and (Afire; and whenever we thus express ourselves, we betray an 
involuntary consciousness of the reality of the above relation. 
Again : How continually do we hear and use such forms of speech 
as these ! — When readily assenting to a request, we frequently say. 
"I wiU do it with all my heart " when speaking in commendation 
of a person whom we esteem, we often say, "He has a good heart:" 
and when see a man extremely intent upon any object, we say, 
" His whole heart is in it." But how absurd it would be to use 
such expressions, if, by the heart, we meant nothing more than the 
organ by which the blood is impelled through the body ! It is 
certain that when w r e thus mention the heart, we mean the will and 
affections : and the reason why we thus speak of one thing instead 
of another, is, because there is a mutual relation between them ; 
since, as has been shewn above, the heart discharges a function in 
respect to the body similiar to that which the will discharges in 
respect to the mind : and our exchanging the terms arises from 
a secret perception of the truth of this analogy. So, in all ages 
and among all nations, it has been usual to consider the hand as an 
emblem of power, and to introduce the name of this important 
member into various phrases, when we mean, either to speak 
simply of power, or to express some kindred sentiment which has 

5 



98 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

the idea of power as its root : thus, how common it is, among poli- 
ticians, to talk of strengthening the hands of government, meaning 
thereby, so to support the government, that it may have power to 
execute its designs ! — and here, again, we refer to the sense we all 
have, of the fixed relation between things material and moral, 
natural and spiritual. 

These instances are chiefly drawn from the organs of the human 
body ; and whoever is disposed to carry his observations of this 
class of analogies farther, will find, that we in like manner fre- 
quently transfer all the terms, which, in their primary signification, 
describe the action of the bodily senses, to express certain opera- 
tions of the mind, of which the senses are appropriate images. 

But we by no means take all our helps to expressive speech of 
this kind from ourselves ; we as frequently borrow them from the 
animal creation, mentioning the names of animals when we mean to 
express the moral and intellectual qualites to which we perceive 
they answer. Thus we often call children lambs, on account of 
their innocence : and to describe a pure affection between the sexes 
we take the suitable image of doves, calling by that name those 
whose mutual attachment is distinguished by its tenderness and con- 
stancy, and by the innocence which it seems to breathe. An eminent 
warrior we call a lion, on account of his prowess. The eagle is 
taken as an emblem of a towering intellect, on account of his 
mounting to such a height in his aerial excursions, and the steadi- 
ness with which he can fix his gaze on the sun ; as is a hawk of 
acute discernment, for his extraordinary keenness of sight. And when 
we behold a person indulging in flights of a soaring imagination, we 
borrow the appropriate figure of a winged horse, invented by the 
ancients, and say, " He has mounted his Pegasus." 

Were we however to turn our attention to a still lower class of 
analogies, and endeavour to recollect the multitude of terms and 
phrases, borrowed from the physical properties of various common 
and inanimate objects, to express the qualities of the faculties, 
operations, and products of the mind ;- we should find ourselves in 
a spacious field indeed. How familiarly do we speak, and how 
frequently do we hear, of stabbing with reproaches, or of using 
cutting words; of corrosive thoughts; of bitter pangs, both of body 
and mind ; of sharp afflictions, and acute sufferings, likewise of both 
kinds; of lacerated feelings; of biting sarcasms; of grinding oppres- 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 99 

sion ; of upright dealings ; of crooked policy ; of straight-forward 
proceeding j of melting tenderness ; of hardened wickedness ; of soft 
compassion ; with a thousand other such combinations ! which are 
all absolutely heterogeneous, if the essentially different nature of 
the ideas combined be alone regarded, but which, nevertheless, 
strike no one as absurd, as they would do, if not in some way 
founded in the very nature of things. They have such a foundation, 
and therefore they do not offend us: the reason is, because, though 
heterogeneous in one respect, they are homogeneous in another ; 
though physical properties are applied to moral objects, and are 
entirely different from the properties of such objects, they answer 
to them by an exact analogy, and are, in a lower sphere, what the 
others are in a higher. Of this, all men have a perception ; we 
therefore readily translate the idea of the physical property into 
that of the moral one ; and this, often, so instantaneously, that we 
do not advert to the physical idea at all ; all which would be im» 
possible did not Nature herself dictate the interpretation, and thus 
assure us that the language is her own. Men, also, more particu- 
larly have recourse to such language, when they most strongly feel 
jl&at they say; when they speak, as it were, more immediately 
under the inspiration of Nature, and when their thoughts flow 
more regularly in agreement with her laws. Then it is that they 
have a more clear intuition of the analogy that reigns between the 
various provinces of her empire, and thus are better enabled to give 
force to a purely intellectual idea, by calling its counterpart mate- 
rial one to its aid : as the hero, when rising to the defence of his 
country, fortifies the vital parts of his frame by a clothing of 
armour fitted over Nature's investment of ribs and flesh, and adds 
the power of his sword to that of his hand. 

(3.) Now, what all see to hold good in some cases, must also be 
admitted to hold good universally ; and thus we shall find that the 
common perceptions of mankind irresistibly confirm the existence, 
through all the kingdoms or spheres of being, of that constant 
analogy, which we have before endeavoured to establish from the 
very nature of things. If there be a great number of instances in 
which the Mutual Kelation between things moral, intellectual, and 
spiritual, and things material, sensible, and natural, is so evident, 
that every human being intuitively perceives it ; must we not 
necessarily conclude, that there are innumerable other instances in 



100 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP 



LLECT. 



which a similar relation exists, although it is not so immediately 
obvious to our dark apprehensions ? Must it not, indeed, be abso- 
lutely certain, that such a relation prevails, not only in many other 
instances, but in all cases whatsoever ? This is a fact that appears 
to be capable of demonstration. Tor we know that all things 
which exist in this natural world, how much soever they may differ 
from each other, have, nevertheless, one common nature, and are 
derived from one common origin : they all are forms compacted of 
material substances, or are modifications of such forms, and they 
all have the first cause of their existence in God : If then we see, 
incontrovertibly, that some of the objects which lie obvious to our 
senses in the natural world, have a Eelation of Analogy with cer- 
tain moral and spiritual things, it follows, by inevitable conse- 
quence, that all the other objects of this natural world, by virtue of 
their possessing the same common nature and the same common 
origin, must also possess the same kind of Relation to certain other 
moral or spiritual things. In fact, as has in part been shewn 
above, the causes of all natural objects immediately lie in the world 
of spiritual existences, so that, in reality, spiritual things are, 
instrumentally, the producing causes, by derivation from the First 
Cause, of natural things : and hence the spiritual cause and the 
natural effect, must, universally, answer to each other. 

This is most plainly the case with man's soul and body; in 
regard to which we will make this further observation. Man's 
body, we know, cannot exist a moment alone, any otherwise than 
as a corpse ; whereas, according to the Scriptures, and the truest 
philosophy, his soul is capable of subsisting in a separate state. 
It is evident, then, that the soul is the higher subsistence of the 
two ; and it hence becomes certain, that the soul is the immediate 
producing cause of the body. Even if we suppose, with the mate- 
rialist, the soul to be nothing but a certain mental life and activity, 
incapable of existing separately from the body, this will not affect 
our argument ; since it is undeniably true, that it was in order that 
such mental life and activity might come into existence, that the 
body is produced. Be the soul what it may, it is ceriai i that the 
body is formed merely for its sake, and for its use. Now as we 
have before seen that there is a Relation of Analogy between the 
face, with certain other organs of the body, and certain faculties of 
the mind, which is nearly identical with the soul ; so also must it 



HI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 101 

be true, that the whole of the body, taken together, answers to the 
whole of the soul, and every distinct organ or member of the body 
to some distinct faculty or principle of the soul ; and this because 
it is derived from it, or is formed for its sake, to be its seat and 
instrument of action in the world of nature. 

Now what is true of the human body and soul, is true likewise 
of all the objects in nature and of certain spiritual principles which 
are the proximate causes of their existence ; these, again, being ema- 
nations, as it were, from their inmost essences in the perfections of 
Deity. There is a Mutual Eelation or Analogy between them. It 
is evident then, that the instances in which mankind are in the 
habit of speaking in phrases drawn from this Analogy, are but as 
a few gems taken from the entrance to an exhaustless mine ; for 
that every object in nature, were its properties as well understood 
as those of the objects from whence our illustrations have been 
taken, would furnish other such pnrases, and the whole together, 
varieties unbounded. 

Here we find ourselves repeating in other words, (but now as a 
conclusion from the premises advanced,) the proposition stated 
above : That, were the Eelation of Analogy between the different 
orders of existences in the Universe well understood, a style of 
writing might be constructed, in which, while none but natural 
images were used, purely intellectual ideas should be most fully 
expressed. Such a style of language, also, would, as in the in- 
stances before noticed wherein this kind of interchange is still in 
use, be incomparably more forcible than that composed of abstract 
terms, and would, when applied to exalted subjects, embrace an 
infinity more of meaning, than can possibly be infused into the 
best selected arrangement of metaphysical expressions. But then, 
to employ this language with all its power, we must suppose a 
perfect knowledge of both sides of the analogies ; — not only of the 
properties and intrinsic nature of all the natural objects whence 
images are to be taken, but of all the moral, intellectual, and spi- 
ritual things to express which the former are to be applied : and 
this is the wisdom of Omniscience. While then man, from this 
treasury, can only borrow a few scattered jewels to set off his in- 
tellectual dress, the arrangement of them, through all their series, 
into glorious forms of suns and stars, to adorn a robe of imperial 
splendour, demands the skill of the Owner and Author of the 



102 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

whole ; and they who would catch a glimpse of such a production, 
must study with devotional feelings and a teachable spirit, together 
with just ideas of its nature, the Word of God. 

2. For it is in language of such construction, that the Holy 
Word is written throughout ; as we hope will clearly appear in the 
sequel : at present we will only mention a few palpable instances 
of the occurrence in that book of such forms of speech as we have 
already noticed. 

We have seen above, that the face or countenance of man is an 
index of his mind, insomuch that the interior emotions and thoughts 
of his mind are therein expressed : hence, whenever the face is 
spoken of in the Word of God, the interior affections and ideas or 
thoughts of the mind are uniformly to be understood. Thus, men- 
tion is very frequently made of the face of the Lord ; as in the 
form of blessing the people prescribed to Moses and Aaron : " The 
Lord bless thee and keep thee; the Lord make his face shine upon 
thee and be gracious unto thee ; the Lord lift up his countenance 
upon thee and give thee peace."* Here, by the face and coun- 
tenance of the Lord are meant the interior attributes or properties 
of the Lord, or those which constitute his essence ; and these are, 
generally speaking, divine love and divine wisdom, or divine goodness 
and divine truth ; and by the Lord's making his face to shine, and 
lifting up his countenance, upon the objects of his blessing, is sig- 
nified the communication to them of all the graces, with their 
accompanying felicities, of which those divine principles are the 
source. It may also be observed that the attribute of the sun, 
which is, to shine, is here ascribed to the Lord's face : so we some- 
times read, more explicitly, of the Lord's face being as the sunf ; 
and as from the sun flow heat and light to recreate the natural 
objects on which it shines, so from the Divine Sun flow love and 
wisdom to bless intelligent creatures. We have seen, also, that 
the sight of the bodily eye answers to the sight of the mental eye, 
or the understanding, and that natural bght bears an exact analogy 
to spiritual light, which is truth : hence it is written, " The people 
that walked in darkness have seen a great light % ; " by which is 
meant, that they who before were in ignorance, which is spiritual 
darkness, were brought to a knowledge of the truth : and hence also 

* Numb. vi. 24, 25, 26. f Matt. xvii. 2; Rev. i. 16. ' % Isa. ix. 2. 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 103 

it is said, in a passage cited for another purpose in our last Lecture, 
" Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of 
thy law* ;" for it is certain that the interior glories of the law or 
Word of God are not to be beheld by our bodily eyes, but by our 
mental, — that is, they are to be perceived by the understanding. 
We have seen, likewise, that natural heat, which is that of fire, 
bears a recognized relation to spiritual heat, which is that of love. 
Hence it is that the abode of the lost hereafter is compared to " a 
furnace of/ref," and is said to be a place "where the worm dieth 
not, and the fire is not quenched % :" for by the never-dying worm 
is aptly expressed the perpetual gnawing of corrosive thoughts, and 
by the unquenched fire the insatiate raging of evil lusts. In this 
instance, fire is mentioned to express love of a wicked and infernal 
character ; but it is frequently used to express such as is heavenly 
and divine : thus it is said of the Lord Jesus Christ, that " He shall 
baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire § ;" by which is meant, 
that he will regenerate his disciples by his Spirit of Truth and his 
Divine Love. We have seen, further, that the heart of man is in- 
tuitively perceived to bear a relation of analogy to his icill. Hence 
it is said in the Holy Word, that " the heart of man is deceitful 
above all things and desperately wicked || ; by which we are taught 
that the icill of man is, tlirough sin, of such a quality ; whence the 
Lord says by the prophet, " I will take away the stony heart out of 
their flesh, and give them a heart of fleshy ;" by which is signified, 
that the icill of evil shall be removed, and the will of good im- 
planted, with those who submit themselves to be guided by the 
Lord : and it is not said that this new heart shall be a heart of 
flesh, merely to contrast the softness of this material with the 
hardness of stone, — though this affords a poetical figure, likewise 
founded in a real analogy, and equally beautiful and expressive, — but 
on account, also, of the less remote analogy, which, as we have seen 
above, fiesh itself bears to the principle of goodness. Finally we 
have noticed, how prolific a source of metaphorical phrases has 
been afforded by the plain analogy between the human hand and 
the principle of power : and of applications of this image the Scrip- 
tures are full. Thus how often is it said that the Lord brought 
the Israelites out of Egypt by " a mighty hand," or " by a mighty 

* Ps. cxix. 18. f Matt. v. 42. \ Mark ix. 44, 46, 48 ; Isa. lxvi 24. 

§ Matt. iii. 11. \\ Jer. xvii. 9. fl Ezek. xi. 19. 



104 PLENAPY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

hand and a stretched ont arm !"* No one supposes that this was 
done by the visible putting forth of a hand and arm from the person 
of God ; but all who believe the history allow, that it was effected 
by a wonderful exertion of Divine Omnipotence. So, when it is 
said of the Lord Jesus Christ, that "he was received up into 
heaven, and sat on the right hand of Godf," few minds can be so 
gross as to dare to picture to their imagination two personal divine 
forms sitting side by side on the throne of heaven ; but all must 
see that the phrase is introduced to teach the same truth respecting 
the Lord Jesus Christ, as, in another evangelist, he declares re- 
specting himself in plain terms : " All power is given unto me in 
heaven and in earth % " All power is omnipotence: to be received 
up and sit on the right hand of God, evidently, then, can mean 
nothing else, than the exaltation of that which was so received up, 
which was the glorified Human Nature of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
to the full possession and exercise of Divine Omnipotence, — to be 
the instrument by which, thenceforth, the Divine Omnipotence was 
to be exerted. 

It would be highly interesting, and would materially help to 
confirm the important result to which all the facts and examples 
which we have here noticed tend, could we stop to examine some 
instances in the Scriptures, similiar to those adduced above from 
common discourse, of the formation of expressive phrases by apply- 
ing the names of animals, and of the qualities of inanimate objects, 
to describe mental powers and properties : but we must not anti- 
cipate too far the subject of our two next Lectures. The examples 
above adduced from common speech, and these few from Scripture, 
must be sufficient to establish the fact which we have had in view in 
this branch of our argument ; — That were the Belation of Analogy 
between natural and spiritual existences well understood, a style of 
writing might be constructed, in which, while none but natural 
images were used, pm'ely intellectual ideas should be most fully 
conveyed: and the examples from Scripture in particular, must 
surely be felt to render highly probable the further conclusion, 
that this is actually the style in which the Word of God is written. 
On the application of the Eule of Analogy, we see how clear and 
beautiful a sense results from passages otherwise extremely mys- 

* Deut. iv. 34; v. 15; vi. 21; vii. 8, 19; ix. 26; xi. 2; xxvi. 8; xxxiv. 12. 
j Mark xvi. 19. t Matt xxviii 18. 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 105 

terious ; and though a general idea of the meaning of such passages 
as we have now considered, might present itself to almost every 
reader, we see that what could otherwise be only an obscure, 
shadowy, undefined idea, becomes, on the application of the Rule, 
clear, distinct, and definite. There are however, multitudes of ana- 
logies which have quite dropped out of use in common speech, but 
which are retained in Scripture ; and in the interpretation of such 
passages, without a knowledge of the principle, nothing could be 
offered but mere conjecture. This, however, will be seen more clearly 
in the sequel ; what we are here chiefly aiming at is, to establish, 
beyond question, the universal existence of such a Mutual Relation 
between things natural, spiritual, and divine, as we have endeavoured 
to explain. This is testified, we have seen, by every thing that we 
know respecting all these different orders of being : the conviction 
comes more closely home to us, when we notice that we intuitively 
perceive it, and draw from it many of our e very-day phrases : and 
it is further confirmed still, if, while we only look at the Scriptures 
as a collection of very ancient writings, composed in an idiom 
generally in use in the early ages of the world, we find them full o?? 
forms of speech evidently constructed on the same universal 
principle. In fact, the doctrine of Analogy, and the Sacred 
Scriptures, mutually illustrate each other. In the Scriptures, more 
than any where else, are afforded the means of recovering the 
knowledge of this Analogy; and, without arguing in a circle, we 
shall find in the end, that the doctrine of spiritual Analogy will 
afford the only key for arriving at a satisfactory interpretation of 
the Scriptures. 

IV. Among those, however, who think that nothing which is 
new can possibly be true, there may be some who will be unwilling 
to contemplate those clear proofs of the existence of a Mutual 
Relation between things natural and spiritual which Nature every 
where exhibits, unless to the testimony of Nature, confirmed by 
Reason, be added that of human authority. This then may be 
produced in abundance, provided great antiquity should not be 
deemed as objectionable as absolute novelty : for certain it is, that, 
in the remote ages, the Relation in question was very extensively 
understood. The passages already quoted from the Scriptures 
evince, that, when they were written, the Relation of Analogy be- 

5* 



106 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

tween natural and spiritual subjects, if not necessarily known to tlie 
writers of the books, was present to the Divine Mind by whose in- 
spiration they wrote them ; and being thus recognized by him whose 
existence is from everlasting, it has the sanction of an antiquity 
coeval with the origin of all creation ; of which fact we shall find 
abundantly more confirmations in the sequel. But if there be any 
who can fear to give themselves up to this evidence ; — who will 
even distrust the voice of God, added to the dictates of Nature, till 
it is authenticated by the testimony of man: they need not reject it, 
in this instance, for the want of such credentials. 

1. It is even unnecessary to travel out of the "Word of God 
itself, for testimony of this kind : for if we only take its relations 
as authentic history, whether dictated by divine inspiration or not, 
we shall find that some of them give full proof of the fact., that the 
knowledge of the Eelation between things spiritual and natural, 
whereby they mutually answer to each other, and whereby the 
natural afford proper images for the expression of the spiritual, 
was in ancient times widely diffused. We might instance the case 
of Balaam, a native of Mesopotamia, who thrice directed Balak to 
build seven altars, and to offer a bullock and a ram on every altar*, 
when he was desirous to obtain an " enchantment against Jacob, 
and a divination against Israelf ;" and who actually did, in con- 
sequence of these emblematic preparations, obtain communications 
from heaven, though of a contrary nature to those which he and 
his employer wished for : — circumstances which evince, that there 
really was a connexion between the communications obtained and 
the ceremonies performed, and which establish tbe really typical 
character of the latter, and the knowledge of this possessed by 
Balaam. 

But we have a still more remarkable instance of the preservation 
of this knowledge, in the account of the events which befel the 
Philistines after they had taken in battle the ark, which was the 
most holy symbol in the representative worship of the Jews. The 
chief circumstances were as follows. :£ 

On capturing the ark, they placed it in the house of their idol 
Dagon ; and the consequence was, that the next morning they 
found the idol fallen with his face to the ground before it. They 

* Xumb. xxiii. 1, 14, 29. f Ver. 23. J See 1 Sam. Cos. v. and vi. 






III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 107 

however regarded this as an accident, and set the idol up again ; 
when, the following morning, beside finding the idol thrown down 
afresh, they found his head and both his hands cut off, and lying 
upon the threshold. And not only did judgments thus fall upon 
the idol, but upon his infatuated worshipers, who died in great 
numbers, and those who died not were smitten with emerods : the 
land, also, was overrun with mice. They then determined to send 
the ark away, as the only means of obtaining deliverance from the 
miseries which they suffered ; but on consulting their priests and 
diviners, these said, " If you send away the ark of the God of 
Israel, send it not empty, but in any wise return him a trespass 
offering." Then they said, "What shall be the trespass offering?'* 
The others answered, " Five golden emerods and five golden mice, 
according to the number of the lords of the Philistines." They 
also directed them to make a new cart, and to take two milch kine 
on which there had come no yoke, and tie them to the cart, and 
bring their calves home from them, and send away the ark : and 
they said, " See, if it goeth up by the way of his own coast, to 
Bethshemesh," (which was the nearest Israelitish city,) " then he 
(the Lord) hath done us this great evil : but if not, then we shall 
know that it is not his hand that smote us : it was a chance that 
happened to us." All this was accordingly done : " And the kine," 
the history relates, " which drew the cart, took the straight way 
to Bethshemesh, lowing as they went, without turning either to the 
right hand or to the left :" and when the people of Bethshemesh 
saw it, they offered up the kine for a burnt offering, cutting to 
pieces the cart, and making the fire with the wood. Now to what 
purpose could be all these ceremonies, if something were not spe- 
cifically and correctly symbolized by every particular related ? 
"Without this, what would the whole proceedings amount to, but a 
piece of idle mummery ? That they were not such, is evident from 
the effects being such as was expected : the unguided kine of their 
own accord, took the way to Bethshemesh, and the Philistines 
were relieved from their sufferings. The whole then must have 
been a series of representative images, founded in the Relation of 
Analogy which exists by the constitution of nature between natural 
things and spiritual : and a knowledge of this Eelation must have 
been possessed, to some extent, by the Philistine priests and 
diviners : otherwise, how could they have directed such rites to be 



108 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

performed, as, though seemingly trifling, had the effect of turning 
away the plagues with which the people were afflicted? The 
reason why such effects followed the use of such means, is, because, 
prior to the alteration made in the state and nature of the church 
by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, all worship was carried 
on by representative rites significant of spiritual and heavenly 
things, and it was by such worship, founded in that Relation be- 
tween things spiritual and natural, whereby the latter are images of 
the former, that, under the Economy which then prevailed, the 
communication was maintained between heaven and earth, between 
God and man ; and unless this communication be maintained by 
some means, neither man nor the earth could continue in existence. 
Ceremonies then, which, under such an Economy, were solemnly 
performed according to this Relation of Analogy, sometimes pro- 
duced natural effects, answering to those spiritual ones which real 
worship, with its accompanying graces, produces in the mind : as 
was often the case with the rites prescribed by divine authority to 
the Israelitish Church ; of which we shall give an example or two 
in a subsequent Lecture. 

We will briefly state what appears to be implied by the circum- 
stances of the present history. The ark, under the Israelitish Dis- 
pensation, was a symbol of the Divine Presence, which none but 
the truly good can endure, and they not too near ; and which causes 
the lusts cherished by the wicked more openly to become their 
tormentors. The Philistines represent those who exalt faith above 
charity, making the former every thing, and the latter of no ac- 
count; which was the reason of their continual wars with the 
Israelites, who represent the true church, or those who cherish 
faith in union with charity. The idol Dagon is the religion of those 
who are represented by the Philistines. The emerods with which 
they were smitten, are symbols of the appetites of the natural man, 
which, when separated from spiritual affections, as is done by 
those who do not apply their faith to the purification of their lives, 
are unclean. The mice, by which the land was devastated, are 
images of the lust of destroying by false interpretation the spiritual 
nourishment which the church derives from the Word of God, as 
is done by those who separate faith from charity. The emerods of 
gold exhibit the natural appetites as purified and made good. 
The golden mice symbolize the healing of the tendency to false in- 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 109 

terpretation effected by admitting a regard to goodness ; for of 
this, as we shall see in the next example, gold is an emblem. The 
cows are types of the natural man, in regard to such good qualities 
as he possesses. Their lowing by the way expresses the repug- 
nance of the natural man to the process of conversion. And the 
offering of them up for a burnt offering, typifies that restoration 
of Older which takes place in the mind, when the natural affections 
are submitted to the Lord. It would detain us too long were we 
to stay to offer proof of the truth of these explanations : every one 
may verify them for himself, by trying what sense will be drawn 
from other passages of Scripture, where the same emblems are 
used, on giving them the same interpretation ; for if the significa- 
tion thus obtained be every where coherent and satisfactory, the 
meaning assigned to the symbols must be the true one. .But 
whether our explanation be the true one or not, it will not affect 
the position for which the history is here cited : It will still be 
certain, that the ceremonies directed by the Philistine priests and 
diviners must have been intended to have some meaning : As the 
expected events followed, it must be true that the operations 
they prescribed must have had a real analogy to certain things of 
a spiritual nature : and of this, they must have possessed a know- 
ledge. 

But further. That an acquaintance with the Relation which 
natural things bear to spiritual was in ancient times widely ex- 
tended, and that it was not altogether lost sight of among the 
eastern nations at the period of the commencement of the Christian 
era, is evident from the account of the wise men of the east, who, 
under the guidance of a star, came and "presented unto" the 
infant Saviour "gifts; gold, frankincense, and myrrh."* Without 
entering into the inquiry respecting the nature of the star that 
appeared, the spiritual thing represented by it is obvious. Stars, 
as being luminous bodies, and thus belonging to the general analogy 
of light, which, we have seen, answers to truth, are apt images of 
knowledge or information upon spiritual subjects : hence this star, 
which conducted the wise men to Jesus, was an appropriate type 
of that knowledge respecting the promised advent of the Lord, 
which was retained, from ancient tradition, among the eastern 
people. The gifts which they offered were emblematical of the 
• Matt. ii. 11. 



110 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

worship which the truly wise will ever be foremost in yielding to 
"Him that was born King of the Jews*:" on which subject we 
will offer a little explanation. 

By the gifts which the wise men presented, is pointed out, what 
the nature of all divine worship must be, if he who engages in it 
wishes it to be acceptable to the Lord or beneficial to himself. An 
offering of gold, on account of the density, ductility, indestructi- 
bility, beautiful colour, and other superior qualities of that metal, 
was seen in ancient times, when the perception of such analogies 
was more extensive than at present, to be expressive of worship 
from a principle of pure love or goodness in the will, which is the 
deepest ground from which we can present an offering to the Lord. 
It was on account of this signification of gold that so much use 
was made of it in the representative service of the Jewish taber- 
nacle ; most of the holy furniture of which was overlaid or other- 
wise ornamented with gold, if not made of it entirely : for this use 
of it was designed to express, that there can be no worship of the 
Lord, and no religion, unless there be in the heart of the wor- 
shiper a principle of sterling goodness, — a love towards the Lord 
and his neighbour. The second offering was of frankincense, which 
represents worship from a principle of truth in the understanding • 
that is, not from truth merely known and comprehended, for this, 
nevertheless, may not form the spontaneous sentiment of a man's 
own mind ; but from truth loved, and of course obeyed, as well as 
comprehended and known. This signification of frankincense may 
be gathered from its being the chief ingredient in the holy perfume 
or incense, which was burnt upon the golden altar in the holy 
placef; and from its being added as a kind of seasoning to the 
meat-offerings J, and spread upon the shew-bread§; for the smoke 
of incense is a striking symbol of the aspirations to the Lord of the 
heaven-directed mind, and of the thoughts of a heart that conti- 
nually turns to him. So the offering of myrrh represented worship 
from a suitable life and conversation ; and although this cannot so 
directly be proved, it is evident from this fact ; that whatever is 
really in the will, and thence in the understanding, never stops 
there inactive, but descends, on every suitable occasion, into life 
and action. This is the reason why, in the Scriptures, so many 

* Matt. ii. 2. f Exod. xxx. 34. J Lev. ii. 1, 2, 15, 1G. 

§ Ch. xxiv. 7. 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. Ill 

instances occur, as in this passage, of a three-fold arrangement. 
The particulars so enumerated are sometimes in an ascending series, 
but more frequently, as here, in a descending one ; and then the 
last in order, as the myrrh is in this instance, denotes the ultimate 
effect of the union and activity of the prior two. Myrrh, also, was 
one of the ingredients of the holy oil with which all the persons 
and vessels employed in the tabernacle-service were to be anointed*: 
by which oil was signified good of all orders and degrees, begin- 
ning from the most common or lowest, represented by the myrrh, 
which is therefore mentioned in the first place, (the ascending series 
being that which is here adopted,) and rising to the purest and 
most exalted, represented by the pure olive oil, which is mentioned 
the last. That the ointment thus compounded was intended to be a 
type of love and charity, with their uniting tendency and all their 
beneficial operations, may be gathered from the manner in which it 
is mentioned by David : " Behold, how good and pleasant a thing- 
it is for brethren to dwell together in unity ! It is like the precious 
ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even 
Aaron's beard; that went down to the skirts of his garments."! 
The introduction here, by the inspired writer, of the "precious 
ointment," would only make a simile without resemblance, if there 
were not an analogy between its nature and that of the virtue whose 
praise he celebrates. 

Now it may fairly be inferred, that the wise men would not have 
"worshiped" "the young child" by these natural emblems, so 
exactly typifying the spiritual worship due to that Divine Nature 
which was assuming this mode of manifesting itself to the world, 
had they not been apprized, to some extent, of the analogy between 
things natural and things spiritual. Nothing but this could have 
dictated the performance of acts so significant and appropriate. 
Without such a guide, they might, certainly, have brought presents, 
in token of respect : but it must have been by a rare chance in- 
deed that they could have fixed upon articles so exactly symbolic 
of the sentiments proper to the occasion. 

2. But if we were to turn to the writings and other monuments 
yet extant of profane antiquity, we should find proofs multiplying 
all around us, to evince, that in very ancient times the knowledge 
* Exod. xxx. 23, 24, 25. f p s. cxxxiii. 1, 2. 



112 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [lECT 

of the Relation between things spiritual and things natural was 
very much cultivated indeed : in fact, we should see reason to con- 
clude, that the ancients knew of no other way of expressing their 
conceptions respecting spiritual and heavenly subjects, but by cloth- 
ing them with images drawn from natural objects. Who, for 
instance, can doubt, that the fables of their Mythology were all 
originally framed upon this principle? These fables have been handed 
down to us with many mutilations, additions, and other deprava- 
tions, being now only found in the writings of authors who did not 
understand them, and who had received them from traditionary relat- 
ers, of whom, likewise, many were ignorant of their meaning, and 
frequently confounded different things together : yet many of these 
fables still exhibit marks which evince, that their first authors com- 
posed them by the aid of a correct knowledge of the spiritual and 
moral analogy of natural things, and designed them to convey lessons 
of interior wisdom. Thus, though some of the heathen deities might 
be no more than deified men, — persons who, while they lived, had 
been benefactors to their species ; (in which light some of the later 
ancients, and many of the moderns, have chosen to consider them 
all ;) yet how much more reasonable is the opinion of the wiser 
ancients, followed likewise by many of the moderns, that the per- 
sonifications of the Grecian mythology were only designed to 
represent the distinct attributes of the One Infinite God, and were 
not intended to be considered as exisiting in separate personal 
forms, but had such forms assigned them merely to render the 
contemplation of the various divine perfections more easy to the 
human understanding ; whilst the regarding of them as so many 
separate gods, and the worshiping of them as such, were innova- 
tions of the ignorant vulgar, — exactly of the same natm'e as that 
which has been introduced by some of the moderns, in making a 
complete separation of the persons of the Christian Trinity. We 
will endeavour to sketch an idea of some of the leading charac- 
ters of this mythology, and of the design of a few of its principal 
fables. 

It is a fact which will readily be admitted, that the Divine Being 
is regarded and worshiped, by all mankind, through the medium of 
the conceptions which they have formed of him in their own minds, 
and that none are able to conceive an idea of him that is at all ade- 
quate to what he is in Himself, since it is impossible for a finite 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 113 

being to comprehend the Infinite : hence the idea of God cannot, be 
exactly the same in any two minds; and in persons of very dis- 
similiar religious sentiments it must be very different indeed. Now 
it appears to have been the custom among the ancients, when a 
very great change took place in men's modes of conceiving of the 
Deity, to assign to him a different name : the propriety of which 
practice seems to be recognized in the Scriptures, where we find 
the Lord saying to Moses, when about to communicate a new 
revelation different from that which had existed before, " I appeared 
unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of 
God Almighty, but by my name Jelwvali was I not known to them."* 
Thus we are not to conclude that the wiser ancients regarded their 
supreme god, Jupiter, as a different divine being from the older 
supreme god, Saturn ; but that under those distinct names, to each 
of which they assigned distinct attributes, they personified the 
different ideas of the Supreme Being entertained by two very 
different generations of mankind, — by men of such essentially dis- 
tinct genius and character as those may well be conceived to have 
been, who lived before, and who lived after, the Scriptural catas- 
trophe of the flood. And as the latter race of men were descended 
from the former, and their idea of God sprung out of that which 
had been conceived by the previous generation, — was, in fact, the 
offspring of it, — they transferred this idea to the deities themselves, 
and described Jupiter as the son of Saturn : for which also there 
was a further reason, to which we shall presently advert. 

But the occasion on which Jupiter is fabled to have succeeded to 
the throne of heaven, was this : a war was waged against Saturn 
by the first race of giants, called the Titans, — evidently the 
"Nephilim " of the Scriptures-}-, — who, it is pretended, would have 
succeeded in their enterprise, had not Jupiter flown to the assist- 
ance of his father, and discomfited the enemy with his thunderbolts ; 
after which, like many other auxiliaries of distressed sovereigns, he 
seized the reins of government for himself. Now if we conceive 
Saturn to be a personified idea of the Divine Being more in regard 
to that pure goodness, which, the poet assures us, prevailed under 
his dominion among mankind, when 

* Exod. vi. 3. 

t In the original of Gen vi. 4. The later races of giants are called Re- 
phaim. 



114 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

Sine militis nsu 
Mollia secures peragebant otia gentesi 

and which procured for the Saturnia regna, in the language of ana- 
logy, the expressive synonyme of " the golden age," (though the use 
of that metal was then unknown j — according to the poet, not yet 
itum est in viscera terra, nor yetferro nocentius aurum Prodierat) ; 
— if we regard the Titans as the direful perversions of such a state 
— the lust of empire and pride of self-exaltation most opposite to 
inoffensive benevolence ; — if we see in Jupiter a personification of 
the Divine Being more in regard to that other great essential pro- 
perty of Deity, pure Truth, which is the agent in eveiy divine work 
of judgment and of restoration, and of the manifestation or revela- 
tion of which, thunder, often deemed by the vulgar the voice of 
God, and lightning, the sudden irradiations of which have such an 
awakening effect, are natural images ;— and if we conceive further, 
what was clearly the fact, that the character of the people who lived 
after the flood was less affectionate and more intellectual than be- 
fore, — that sciences, distinct from the intuitive perceptions inherent 
in the love of exalted goodness, then first began to be cultivated,— 
thus, that the altered genius of mankind led them to view the 
Divine Being more in his character of pure but benignant Truth, 
than of simple unmixed Goodness, — or as a Jupiter rather than a 
Saturn ; — whence, also, with the reign of Jupiter commenced the 
silver age, — silver being, among metals, the symbol of pure, inte- 
rior truth, as gold is that of pure, exalted goodness: — If, I say, 
we accept these views, we at least shall have a theory which well 
agrees with the facts, as established by higher authority, and which 
affords, — may I be allowed to say ? — a beautiful solution of the 
circumstances of the fable. 

Nor does the fiction, that it was the practice of Saturn always to 
devour his offspring, detract from the character here given him, as 
the personification of unmixed goodness : for children, in the lan- 
guage of analogy, viewed in relation to their father, are as the per- 
ceptions and thoughts of the intellect in relation to the love, affec- 
tion, or desire, which gives them birth. Every one who reflects 
on the operations of his own mind, must see, that thought, the ob* 
ject of which is truth, or what is esteemed to be truth, is entirely 
the offspring of affection. Take away all affection, — reduce the 
mind to a state of perfect apathy, — and you will immediately cease 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 115 

to think : on the contrary, when any affection is in high excite- 
ment, how active are the thoughts ! what a tumult of ideas, — what 
multitudes of reasonings, crowd into the intellect, when violent 
passions agitate the will ! It is in agreement, then, with true 
philosophy, to regard Truth as the offspring of Goodness, this 
being essentially Love, to some species of which all the affections 
belong : whence we see the further reason, alluded to above, for 
considering Jupiter, who was the personification of the Divine 
Being in respect more to his essential attribute of Truth than of 
Goodness, as the son of Saturn, who was the personification of the 
Divine Being in respect more to his essential attribute of Goodness 
than of Truth. We are not however to suppose that the people of 
the golden age regarded the Divine Being as Goodness or Love 
alone, without Truth or Wisdom, nor that the silver age regarded 
him as Truth or Wisdom alone, without Goodness or Love s the 
former worshiped him as Divine Goodness from which proceeds 
Divine Truth, and the latter as Divine Truth within which is Divine 
Goodness. Now it was contrary to the peculiar genius of the 
people of those primeval times, to be willing to contemplate any 
thing of mere intellect separate from its parent affection : to do so 
they would have considered as an awful lapse from the perfection 
of the human character : they viewed all truth as inherent in its 
parent affection, and, though continually produced by it, con- 
tinually resolving itself into it. In agreement with this sentiment, 
the preservation of Jupiter and his brothers is fabled to have been 
effected by the artifice of his mother Rhea — the earth, — which is a 
term used in the language of analogy, for that which, in the lan- 
guage of theology, is called the external man : it is by inclining to 
the external that intermediate spiritual births are produced by the 
internal, and it is by the suggestions of the external, or by acced- 
ing to its inclinations, that they are viewed as altogether separate. 
The artifice, too, by which Saturn was deceived by Rhea, was, her 
giving him a stone to swallow instead of his son ; — a monstrous 
absurdity, if any thing like a literal history be supposed to be in- 
tended, but a beautiful combination of the analogies of different 
orders of existences, if the involved mystery be regarded. For a 
stone, among inanimate things of the lowest order, belongs to the 
same general analogies as a son does among the highest ; both are 
types of the objects of intellect ; a stone being a symbol of truth in 



11 G PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

its lowest sphere, when clothed with appearances taken from the 
world of nature, and a son being a symbol of truth when living in 
the perceptions of the human mind. Now that, in this se?ise, strange 
as it may sound, stones were swallowed by the primeval inhabitants 
of the world, cannot be doubted, if we believe, as is highly 
reasonable, first, that there is such a mutual relation between 
natural things and spiritual, that the latter are reflected by all the 
objects of creation ; secondly, that this analogy was intuitively ap- 
prehended by those ancients, so that, to them, every thing in nature 
conveyed a spiritual idea, and, by them, " the invisible things of 
God were clearly seen in the things that are made;" and, lastly, 
that the exalted affection for goodness in which they were prin- 
cipled, beholding in terrestrial objects nothing but images of hea- 
venly ones, eagerly seized the ideas thus presented, and incorporated 
them with itself. Hence, as they viewed God through the medium 
of the conceptions of their own minds, so that their Supreme Deity 
may be considered, as noticed above in the case of the idol Dagon, 
as the personified abstraction of their leading religious sentiments, 
they depicted Saturn as the devourer of his children, or of stones 
in their stead. 

And here be it observed, that such a mode of representing 
spiritual subjects, so long as it was understood, must have been 
equally delightful and instructive: but in the degenerate times that 
succeeded ; — to speak in their own language, — in the copper age, 
when men regarded only external goodness, cultivating merely 
natural affections, — and still more in the iron age, when they took 
their character from a merely external understanding, and no longer 
had spiritual, but only natural conceptions of truth ; — such repre- 
sentations became liable to great abuse. Then, understanding 
literally this, so understood, flagitious practice of Saturn, and the 
similar deeds of their other divinities, they changed the whole into 
a system of abomination and impurity, never dreamed of by its in- 
ventors ; and villainy pretended to perpetrate its crimes under the 
express sanction of the gods. 

But to return. We have selected the above fables for illustra- 
tion, as being fundamental ones, on which the whole of the Greek 
mythology turns: otherwise, some of the others would perhaps 
admit of a more familiar explanation. When, for instance, a second 
race of giants is fabled to have made a second insurrection, and to 






III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 117 

have heaped mountain upon mountain to scale the walla of heaven 
(, an occurrence which is described in Scripture by the parallel 
scheme of building " a tower whose top should reach unto 
heaven")* ; and when the gods are said, in fear, to have tied for 
refuge to Egypt, and there to have disguised themselves by taking 
the forms of various animals, Jupiter assuming the figure of a ram, 
Juno that of a white cow, and the like ; — how aptly may we see 
described the desolation, through the prevalence of extravagant 
lusts and wild phantasies, of all that constitutes real religion, until 
all true knowledge of the divine nature and attributes is banished, 
the graces of the truly spiritual man are no more, and nothing of 
them is left but some good affections (represented by the animals 
in which the deities lurked,) in the natural man, which in this 
fable, as in the Scriptures, is typified by Egypt ! On this occasion, 
also, it was oracularly pronounced, that the gods must finally be 
vanquished, unless they called a mortal to their aid : where again 
we see a proof, that by their gods they did not strictly understand 
the Deity as he is in Himself, but as he is received, and as ideas 
are formed of him, in the human mind: for none could imagine that 
any insurrection from hell could injure the Deity Himself, though 
it might abolish the graces of which he is the author, from the 
mind of man. The fable adds, that in compliance with the oracle, 
the gods avail themselves of the assistance of Hercules, the son of 
Jupiter by a human mother, by whose help they regained Olympus : 
in which, I think, the serious Christian must discover, whatever 
the infidel may think of it, a knowledge among the gentiles of that 
genuine oracular declaration which said, that the seed of the 
woman should bruise the serpent's head. Indeed, the whole history 
of Hercules and his labours evinces, that they who constructed 
it, had a knowledge of the Redeemer who <was to come, and of the 
redemption which was to be wrought by the Incarnate God, who, 
" having spoiled principalities and powersf," and " destroyed him 
that had the power of death"! was to be made "perfect through 
sufferings!," "crowned with glory and lion our |J :" which truths 
they involved in their customary style of fable, filled with circum- 
stances drawn from the language of spiritual analogy. 

Once more. If we were apprized that, in its spiritual reference 
that common Scripture-emblem, the horse, expresses the under 

*Gen.xl4. fCol.ii. 15. J Heb. ii. 14. § Ver. 10. || Ver. 9. 



118 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

standing or apprehension of Truth, — whence four horses appeared, 
in the Revelation, to proceed out of a book*, and on another was 
seen riding in heaven He whose "name is called The Word of 
Godf," — we shonld perceive the reason why horses were assigned 
to Neptune, the god of the ocean, or of the waters, though they seem 
so little adapted to that element :— why a chariot and horses of fire 
were attributed to the sun, the source of light, or of Phoebus, the god 
of day : — why the fountain of Hippocrene, in Mount Parnassus, the 
haunt of the nine Muses, or the sciences, who were the daughters of 
Jupiter and Memory, was said to have been opened by a blow from 
the hoof of the winged horse, Pegasus: — why all the principal 
heroes and demi-gods were represented to have received their insti- 
tution in learning from the Centaurs, an imaginary raoe compounded 
of the man and the horse ; who also were famous for their skill in 
medicine, and instructed in that art the god of medicine, iEsculapius 
himself : — why the device, whatever it was, by which the Grecian 
commanders introduced a body of troops within the walls of Troy, 
was symbolized by a wooden horse .-—and why, on the founding of 
Athens, that celebrated seat of science and philosophy, when Minerva 
and Neptune were contending for the honour of giving it a name, 
Neptune, to display his power, is said to have struck the ground 
with his trident, when there instantly darted forth a horse ; yet the 
disputed honour was awarded to Minerva, at whose bidding there 
sprung up an olive-tree ;-— a fable which beautifully represents the 
superiority of that wisdom figured by the goddess, which regards 
the conduct of life, and leads to the feeling of benevolence termi- 
nating in icorks of utility,— *of which sentiment the olive-tree is the 
symbol, — over those mere accumulations of knowledge typi- 
fied by the waters of the ocean, and having a personified abstract 
in Neptune ; these only enabling their possessor to dazzle by intel- 
lectual display, or to overwhelm by ratiocination ; — of which exer- 
cises the toar-horse is so expressive an emblem. 

The brevity to which these explanations have been necessarily 
confined may perhaps have been such as to prevent their truth from 
being fully perceived : — there is also much difficulty in conveying 
by abstract expressions the exact ideas intended ; in which respect, 
as intimated above, the language of analogy, when once understood, 
has an immense superiority : — but surely no one can doubt, that 
* Ch. vi. 1, 4, 5, 8. f Ch. xix. 11, 13. 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 119 

these fables were all intended by their authors to have a specific 
meaning. There is an evident uniformity in their construction. 
They are all compounded of personified abstractions, and of material 
images taken from actually existing objects 5 and it is plain that, 
by the material images applied, material things are not intended, 
but that they are used as symbols, according to some regular prin- 
ciple, founded in a similitude observed by the composers between 
the images employed and certain moral or spiritual things intended 
to be expressed : And what can this regular principle be, and what 
the similitude observed, but such a Mutual Eelation, or Eelation 
of Analogy, between natural things and spiritual, as renders the 
former expressive mediums for conveying to the mind ideas of the 
latter ? Altogether, I think it certain, that no one can examine the 
fables of the Greek mythology, with a view to this inquiry, without 
being satisfied, that such an immutable Eelation between the dif- 
ferent orders of existences does prevail, and that when those fables 
were composed it must have been well understood. 

The same observation may be extended to the Asiatic mytholo- 
gies, since the affinity between these and the Grecian is well known, 
and modern researches have even discovered, on the banks of the 
Ganges, some of the imaginary deities so long since banished from 
the rest of the world. Since the acquisition, by this country, of 
such extensive possessions in India, the attention of the learned has 
been much directed to the sacred books and traditions of that very 
ancient nation ; and here, still more than in the mythological tales 
of the ancient Greeks, astonishment has been excited by the mar- 
vellous character of the relations which compose their records. But 
little certain knowledge has yet been developed by the illustrious 
scholars who have endeavoured to open this rich mine of science : 
the reason is, because they have chiefly sought, in the extraordinary- 
narratives which they have studied, for information on questions of 
ancient history, geography, and chronology j whereas, when the 
traditions of the highest antiquity appear to treat of such matters, 
it is only for the sake of making them the vehicles of information 
respecting higher subjects. To decypher such compositions, the 
science of Analogies will be found to be the master-key. As 
nothing but this will satisfactorily explain the mythological fables 
of the Greeks ; so likewise must our Orientalists avail themselves 
of this, before they will be able to unfold the kindred theogonies 



120 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

of tLe Hindoos; for it evidently was by persons skilled in this 
science, that these, also, were composed. 

Nor is the once famous country of Egypt to be by any means 
excluded from this enumeration of the ancient cultivators of this 
study : on the contrary, could all written and traditionary learning 
be extirpated from the earth, Egypt would still present her impe- 
rishable monuments, silently but irrefutably proclaiming, that there, 
indeed, the Relation of Analogy between the various kingdoms of 
nature, with their individual objects, and each other ; and between 
all of these, again, and things moral, spiritual, and divine ; wa3 
once— yea, for ages, — well understood ; that there it stamped a 
character upon all elevated science, and that it regulated there 
even the first elements of knowledge. What can be more evident 
than that her celebrated Hieroglyphics, which have so long con- 
founded the skill of the learned, are built on this Analogy, and are 
expressions of it, and that, if ever they are decyphered, it must be 
by its means ? Who could inspect that extraordinary exhibition, a 
year or two since open in London, respecting the tomb of an 
Egyptian king, explored by Mr. Belzoni, and behold the multitude 
of representations of natural objects, evidently designed to convey a 
mystical meaning, without feeling satisfied that the arrangement of 
them must be governed by some Rule, and that it assumed for its 
basis a known Analogy ? Who can escape the same impressions 
on viewing the Egyptian antiquities in the British Museum. To 
particularize only one palpable emblem, the meaning of which 
requires no discussion to establish it : Who can behold those mon- 
strous fists, carved out of the hardest of rocks, without being con- 
vinced that they were designed to symbolize that irresistible power 
that could crush opposers into annihilation ? that their meaning is 
similar to that of the stone mentioned in the gospel, of which it is 
said, that " on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind km to pow- 
ier ?" * So it is evident that in the wonderful scheme of symbolic 
writing contrived by this singular people, the natural objects de- 
picted were put to convey ideas quite distinct from any thing 
immediately belonging to the objects themselves : they delineated 
one thing to express another : they evidently were guided by some 
Analogy which they saw between the two : and it is much more 
reasonable to conclude that they followed a principle known by 
* Matt. xxi. 44. 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 121 

them to exist in the nature of things, than that the whole of so 
complicated a system was merely founded in arbitrary assumption. 

From the whole of this branch of our investigation, then, these 
conclusions appear to be certain: That among all the celebrated 
nations of antiquity, the knowledge of a Mutual Relation, regarded 
as real, between the different orders of existences in the universe, 
once was general: that it formed the peculiar learning of the 
priests, aud was studied by all who aspired to the distinction of 
erudition. 

V. The final conclusion intended to be deduced by the help of 
what has been advanced in this Lecture, is, that in the Eelation of 
Analogy between things natural and things spiritual, (which we 
may now, it is hoped, consider as established,) is to be found the 
Law or Rule according to which the Scriptures are written, and 
that a knowledge of it will afford the key by which their " dark 
sayings" must be decyphered. At least, sufficient reason has per- 
haps been shewn, to make it highly probable that such is the fact, 
and to entitle the application of the system of interpretation pro- 
posed, to a very attentive examination ; and this probability, and 
claim to examination, are greatly strengthened, wheii it is consi- 
dered, that the early part of the Scriptures was written, whilst this 
Relation was cultivated among many nations as a science, and the 
latter part before the knowledge of it was every where quite extinct; 
which alone affords some presumption, conjointly with the extraor- 
dinary character of their style, that they are composed accoi ding to 
it. But to establish this conclusion by a wider induction will be 
the object of the two next Lectures. 

Now as it has, I trust, been solidly evinced, that the Relation of 
Analogy between the different orders of existences is irreversibly 
founded in the very nature of things, and may even be considered 
as one of the most fundamental laws of Nature ; and not only so, 
but that there is a tendency to express ourselves according to it in 
common speech ; this must shield the idea of applying it as a Rule 
for the interpretation of the Scriptures from the imputation of fan- 
cifulness : and as it has, I trust, appeared equally certain, from the 
latter part of this Lecture, that this Analogy was in ancient times 

6 



122 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

well understood, and that many compositions were then framed by 
its laws; this must vindicate the principle from the charge of 
novelty. It is true that this science (, for such it may justly be 
called,) has been lost sight of for many ages ; that though mankind 
have continued to behold its phenomena, they have neglected to 
reflect on their cause : but it is equally true that for a still longer 
course of ages, prior to this interval of oblivion, — from Adam him- 
self through Noah and his descendants, — it was generally under- 
stood. Sciences of a more external kind, having natural things 
alone for their objects, have since been cultivated in its place : but 
now, when these seem to have arrived almost at their perfection, — 
when all the mysteries that Nature conceals in her bosom appear 
nearly to have been opened to our view; (as to their general 
branches, we mean, — for new particulars will be discoverable to 
eternity ;) it surely is time to turn our attention to a science which 
connects natural knowledge with spiritual, and sheds superior light 
on both. In the first ages, interior wisdom was cultivated, to the 
neglect of exterior knowledge: in later ages, exterior knowledge 
has been pursued, to the neglect of interior wisdom : in future 
ages, doubtless, they will be united. The advantages of this union 
will be great. As the doctrine of Analogy is cultivated, it will no 
longer be the reproach, as heretofore, of Science, that she has a 
tendency to lead her votaries to scepticism in regard to religion : 
for natural things will then all be viewed as the outbirths of spi^ 
ritual essences, and so to be connected by an indissoluble tie with 
the Great Author of both, the Creator and Preserver of all things. 
As, at the same time, religion will be cleared of its corruptions, 
and the Bible, understood by the aid of this science, will no longer 
be represented as sanctioning doctrines which reason oondemns; 
that enlargement of mind which knowledge produces will cease to 
become an obstacle in the way of the most oordial faith. The 
Science of Analogies, by unfolding the interior contents of the 
Sacred Volume, and explaining, as we shall see in the sequel, all 
those appearances that seem, either trifling or contradictory, will 
reconcile the jarrings, so long thought irreconcilable, between 
Eeason and Revelation; just as, by shewing the origin and spi- 
ritual relation of all objects in nature, it will conciliate knowledge 
with piety. Every friend, then, to Revelation and to Piety, — yea, 
every admirer of Reason and of Knowledge, is deeply interested in 



III.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 123 

the restoration of this Science ; and both should unite to bring on 
the time, when, as among the ancients, the highest wisdom shall 
be that which is conversant with spiritual subjects, and the first of 
sciences that which teaches the Relation between spiritual subjects 
and the appearances in nature. 



124 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF "lECT. 



LECTUEE IV. 



PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS, EVINCING THAT THE SCRIPTURES ARE WRITTEN 
ACCORDING TO THE LAW OR RULE DEVELOPED IN THE LAST LECTURE. 

I. Of the Style proper to a Divine Composition. Such a Style afforded by the Relation 
of Analogy between natural things and spiritual, as explained in the last Lecture. 
II. That if the Scriptures are -written by a Plenary Divine Inspiration, they must be 
composed in this st j le. 1. That when the Divine Speeeh, or the Divine Word, which 
is the same thing as the Divine Truth, emanates from the bosom of Deity into the 
circumference of creation, or into the world of nature, it there clothes itself with images 
taken from that world, and that it cannot otherwise be presented to mankind. 2. Variety 
of Phraseology in the different Inspired Penmen consistent with Verbal Inspiration. 
3. Plenary Inspiration necessarily occasional, and not permanently attendant on certain 
Fersons. III. That the Holy Scriptures are the Divine Truth thus brought into a 
natural form : and that therefore their interior meaning can only be understood by an 
application to them of the Law which governs the Relation between natural objects 
and spiritual and divine essences. TV. Applicability of the Rule to the Prophecies ol 
the Divine Word. 1. Sentiments of Biblical Critics on the Double Sense of Prophecy. 

2. Rule of Analogical Interpretation adopted by Sir Isaac Newton and Bishop Warburton. 

3. Defects of their Rule, and the necessity of extending it further. V. Examples of the 
light which results from the application of the Rule of Analogy between natural things 
and spiritual to the Prophetic Writings.— Instances selected ; 1. Ezekiel's prophecy or a 
great sacrifice upon tre mountains of Israel (Ezek. xxxix. 17 to 20) ; 2. The Lord's 
prophecy of his Second Coming in the clouds of heaven (Matt xxiv. 29. 30) ; 3. John's 
vision of spiritual Babylon (Rev. xvii. 3 to 6). 

I. There cannot, certainly, be a more interesting and mo- 
mentous excercise proposed to the reflecting mind, than to investi- 
gate the nature of that speech or language which God uses, or 
might be expected to use, in communicating a divinely inspired 
code of knowledge on heavenly subjects. Nothing can be more 
agreeable to reason that to pre-suppose, that the style of language 
in which God speaks to man, must be very different from that in 
which men generally speak to each other; and that its beauties 
and excellences, though necessarily of the most transcendant des- 
cription, must, nevertheless, be quite different in their kind, from 
those which adorn the best human compositions. That is a dictate 
of reason as well as of revelation which declares, that God's thoughts 
are not as our thoughts, nor his ways as our ways*; and also, that 
* Isa. lv. 8. 



IV.J THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 125 

the things most highly esteemed among men, — the wisdom of this 
world, — may be mere foolishness in the sight of God.* Some have 
Seen disgusted with the Scriptures of Divine Truth, and have 
thought it an argument against their divine origin, because they 
are not written in the style of the orations of Demosthenes,— or of 
the philosophical disquisitions of Plato and Aristotle, — or of the 
legal pandects of Justinian ; — because they do not display the tinsel 
rhetoric of the orator, the artificial subtlety of the dialectician, or 
the systematic arrangement of the digester of a code of laws, or of 
a body of divinity. Had the Scriptures, however, been composed 
in any of these styles, I suspect that they would not have been 
deemed, even by the same parties, a whit more worthy of reception. 
We should then have been told, (and with more reason than accom- 
panies any of the objections made to them as they are,) that they 
savoured too much of art and contrivance; — that it were un- 
worthy of the Divine Majesty to compete with man the palm of 
elegance or ornament of style, or to be bound to that kind of order 
which is necessary to the feebleness of human intellect ; — that a 
divine composition might naturally be expected to disregard these 
trifles, and to possess a style peculiar to itself. And this would be 
a just statement of the case. If the thoughts and ways of God 
differ from ours, it undoubtedly must be, by their infinite supe- 
riority. " For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are 
his ways higher than our ways, and Ms thoughts than our 
thoughts."! 

Now it is the chief object of these Lectures to shew, that this is 
the character of the books called the Holy Scriptures or Word of 
God ; that they are distinguished from all other compositions by 
the profoundness of their matter, and by the depth of wisdom with 
which they are inwardly replete ; but that the divine style of writing 
consists in conveying this wisdom with the utmost fulness, and 
in the most uninterruptedly coherent series, under the veil of a con- 
tinued chain of natural images, — in an outwardly simple style of 
language, borrowed entirely from the appearances that exist in 
nature. This we have already repeatedly advanced : we have stated, 
also, that the genuine import of the Holy Scriptures might 
be clearly ascertained, and the whole seen to be worthy of a 
Divine Origin, were it generally known that there is a constant 
* 1 Cor. iii. 19. f Isa. iv. 9. 



126 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

Relation established from creation between moral, intellectual, and 
spiritual essences, and physical, sensible, and material forms ; were the 
Law which governs this Eelation distinctly understood ; and were 
it applied to the decyphering of the symbolic language, of which 
the letter of the Word of God is every where composed. This 
application then we are to make in this Lecture and our next, and 
to offer Proofs and Illustrations, to evince, that the Scriptures are 
written, throughout, according to this Law or Rule. 

The nature of this Analogy, and of the Law which governs it, 
we endeavoured to investigate in our last Lecture : when we found 
that man is affirmed by the Scriptures, (and reason cannot dissent 
from the discovery,) to be created in the image and likeness of 
God : — which, upon the most general interpretation, can mean no 
less, than that he is provided with faculties and powers for receiving, 
in a finite degree, those attributes and qualities which exist in their 
infinite fulness in the divine nature. Thus the high endowments 
of the human mind, as enjoyed in their primitive and proper state, 
without the perversions which evil has introduced, must be deriva* 
tive resemblances, images, and types, of underived, original, real, 
archetypes in God. But we have seen, likewise, that all things in 
the human body are images and types of certain essences and anti- 
types which exist in the mind ; of which man has so clear an in- 
tuitive perception, that he often uses, in common discourse, images 
taken from the organs of his body, to express the affections and 
other properties of his mind. And we have seen further, that as 
man is, in a certain manner, an image of God, so all the inferior 
parts of the creation are, in a certain manner, images of man, and 
thus are, each in its respective station, lower types of certain anti- 
types in him. Thus we have found by various examples, (and the 
evidences of the fact might be multiplied to such an extent, as to 
render negation extremely difficult,) that all things in nature, being 
outward productions from inward essences, are natural, sensible, 
and material types, of moral, intellectual, and spiritual antitypes, 
and finally of their prototypes in God. We have seen also, that 
were the relation between natural types and their spiritual antitypes 
in all cases fully known, a style of writing might be constructed, in 
which, while none but natural images were used, purely intellectual 
ideas should be most fuEy expressed. That such a style of com- 
position has been constructed, — that numerous traces of it still 



IV.] THE SCRCPTURES ASSERTED. 127 

exist, and that in ancient times it was extensively understood,-— 
are propositions which have also. I trust, been satisfactorily demon- 
strated. 

II. The existence of such a Eelation of Analogy being thus, it 
is hoped, clearly established, with the possibility of a style oi 
writing being constructed by its aid, which would be singularly 
adapted for giving full expression to spiritual and divine ideas; 
the question now before us is, Are the Scriptures written in this 
style ? The answer must be in the affirmative, if, on applying this 
principle to the decyphering of their language, we find that we 
every where obtain a clear interpretation, consistent with itself, 
and worthy of a Divine Author. But, in agreement with the plan 
which we have pursued in our former Lectures, we will first offer 
some remarks to shew, that if the Scriptures really are the produc- 
tions of a Divine Author, and thus are written by a plenary divine 
inspiration, they must be composed in this style, and could be com- 
posed in no other. 

1. In our first Lecture we endeavoured to evince, that a Com- 
position which has in reality God for its author, must, as to its 
contents, be infinite and divine, exhibiting, in every page, the 
glories of eternal wisdom : and in our second Lecture we offered 
arguments to prove, that this must chiefly be treasured in an inter- 
nal sense distinct from that of the letter, — that a composition 
which is really the "Word of God, as the Scriptures assume to be, 
must contain stores of wisdom in its bosom independently of any 
thing that appears upon the surface. In our last, whilst we en- 
deavoured to establish the certainty of there being a fixed Eelation 
of Analogy between things natural, spiritual, and divine, we shewed, 
that the ground of this is, because the whole Universe is actually 
an Outbirth from the Deity, and thence must bear, in all its parts, 
an immutable Eelation to the attributes and essential properties of 
the Divine Nature. Now, I think, it will, upon a little reflection, 
appear, that the communication of a Eevelation from God to man, 
must follow the same general law as that which regulated the pro- 
duction of the creation ; that as, in the works of God, spiritual 
essences gave birth, in nature, to material objects, so, in the Word 
of God, spiritual ideas, to become perceptible in the natural world, 



128 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

must invest themselves with natural expressions composed of images 
taken from that world : and thus, as material and natural things 
answer to moral, spiritual, and divine ones, so do the literal and 
natural expressions of Scripture answer to spiritual and divine ideas. 
As, again, the objects of nature could not have been produced by 
the Divine Hand independently of any connexion with spiritual and 
divine essences; so neither could a composition in natural language 
be produced by the Divine Mind, except by the intervention of 
spiritual and divine ideas. And both the works and Word of God 
having such an origin, must be connected with that origin by a 
determinate Eelation of Analogy ; and thus, no Composition really 
communicated by a Plenary Divine Inspiration, can be written in 
any style but that which follows the Law of this Eelation. We 
will consider this a little further. 

(1.) When the Divine Truth proceeds from God to irradiate the 
minds of all intelligent created beings, it evidently must proceed 
according to the same order as that by which all creation itself 
proceeded from Him. What can the Divine Truth be con- 
ceived essentially to be, but a certain spiritual light, which com- 
municates perceptions to the minds of all intelligent creatures, 
according to their respective natures and capacities, whether they 
be adapted for the apprehension of much truth or little? just as 
natural light, to which we have seen it answers by analogy, com- 
municates sensations to the eye, and this also with much variety, 
according to the structure of the organ ; thus the eagle is recreated 
by the full blaze of day, whilst the owl is reduced by it to a state 
of torpor, and can only enjoy its existence in the obscure gloom of 
night. Neither the spiritual light nor the natural light is inherent 
in the objects which receive it, but is in both cases imparted from 
a source extraneous to them. As the natural light is not inherent 
in the eye, and no sensation of it is present but when it flows into the 
eye from a luminous body, either immediately or by reflection ; so 
neither is spiritual light inherent in the understanding, and no per- 
ception of truth can be enjoyed, but by a communication from the 
Source of Truth, either immediately or by derivation. 

If we admit there to be angels and archangels about the throne 
of God, they doubtless must be purely spiritual beings, all whose 
perceptions must be of the most purely spiritual and exalted 
nature ; still, even such beings as these must be merely receptive 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 129 

subjects, destitute of the power of possessing wisdom absolutely as 
their own, without a continual communication from the Only 
Fountain of Wisdom in God : — for had they such a power, they 
would actually be Gods themselves : — consequently, their percep- 
tions of wisdom must be the emanation of Divine Truth, which 
ever flows from God, like spiritual light from a spiritual sun, as 
received in their minds. This is a distinction necessary to be re- 
garded. While it is certain, that no created being, not even the 
highest and most distinguished, can enjoy a single ray of Truth 
which is not conveyed to him from its Infinite Fountain, it is 
equally certain, that the perceptions of truth thus existing in a 
finite mind, must differ immensely from the Truth itself, as existing 
in its Infinite Original. It is modified by the limited capacities of 
the receptive mind, and by its descent into a lower sphere. Its 
form is no longer the same, though one that answers to it by an 
exact analogy. The pure Divine Truth has already clothed itself 
with a veil, though a very transparent one, taken from the angelic 
nature by which it is received : and if it be made the subject of 
oral enunciation, the language for expressing it must be borrowed 
from the ideas of the angels, and from the objects of the angelic 
world ; still, the purely divine ideas will not cease to exist within. 
So it is with natural light. This exists in its purity only in the 
sun ; and even in the objects which reflect it best it loses much of 
its brightness; and it assumes a boundless variety of tints of colour 
and degrees of shade, all borrowed from the bodies on which it 
falls or through which it shines : yet in all these modifications the 
light itself exists. 

But we know well that the divine creative operations have not 
been confined to the production of the spiritual and heavenly 
worlds : natural and material worlds were formed also: and all the 
objects that exist according to order in the natural worlds, are, as 
we have already seen, still outbirths from God Himself : deriving 
their being from the perfections that exist in the divine nature ; 
forming, in the lowest sphere, types of those perfections ; and pre- 
senting, in fact, a divinely constructed mirror, in which spiritual 
and divine things may be seen and read. Suppose then a sphere 
or emanation of Divine Truth to flow forth from God, and not to 
stop till it reach the lowest base of creation, and there to present 
itself in natural language j Of what might that language be ex- 

6* 



130 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF []JLCT. 

pected to consist, but of images taken from the objects that appear 
in nature, and from the common modes of thinking and acting of 
the beings whom it there found ? As Divine Truth, if enunciated 
in the angelic world, must take its expression from the ideas of the 
angels and from the objects of their world ; so must it, in the 
natural world, take its expression from the ideas of men, and from 
the objects of their world; that is, from such ideas as the objects of 
the natural world would suggest to its inhabitants. We have seen 
in our second Lecture, that natural language, or language such as 
is spoken by the inhabitants of a natural world, can be conceived 
and uttered no where but in the natural world ; — just as, according 
to the Apostle Paul, the language of angels is such as is ineffable 
to man, — unspeakable by natural organs ; and it was this language, 
not natural speech, which he heard, when he was transported as 
to his spirit into angelic society: Of course, should the Divine 
Being give a revelation of his Divine Truth to men on earth, the 
ideas of pure divine truth could not present themselves in natural 
language till they had descended into the natural world : and then 
they would clothe themselves in language drawn from the appear- 
ances that exist in the natural world; which they might con- 
veniently do, because all natural objects, answering by an immutable 
relation to spiritual and divine essences, afford suitable images for 
giving them expression. Thus, and no otherwise, could a book, 
written by a Plenary Divine Inspiration, be given to man : if then 
the Scriptures are such a book, they must be composed in a style 
of writing constructed in agreement with the Relation of Analogy 
established by the laws of creation between natural things and 
spiritual. 

(2.) We have seen also, when speaking of this style of writing 
in our last Lecture, that it is capable of conveying spiritual and 
divine ideas with a fulness that no other kind of language could 
afford. This is a reason why the Word of God would be expressed 
in the symbolic language which we find it clothed with, and not 
in the abstract, metaphysical language of philosophers, even had 
it been possible to give it in the latter style ; which it was not. 
Such abstract, metaphysical language is adapted to the use of men 
rendered intelligent by the advantages of Revelation, and of men 
highly illuminated by mediate Revelation ; but not of those who are 
the subjects of immediate Revelation, or who are inspired to write 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 131 

the Word of God itself. Besides, in the times of remote antiquity, 
this artificial language was entirely unknown ; and there was no 
occasion for it, so long as the more forcible and expressive language 
of analogy continued to be understood. Eevelation regards man 
as a spiritual being, the destined inhabitant of an eternal world : 
and its object is, to communicate such knowledge as is necessaiy 
to raise man to a capacity of filling, in that eternal world, a station, 
of happiness and honour: and this knowledge is such as regards the 
existence and attributes of God, man's immortal destiny, and the 
means of acquiring the qualifications for enjoying it. The know- 
ledge necessary to man's existence in the natural world, — whatever 
belongs to that which is called the light of nature, — though also 
imparted continually, together with life, from God ; and though, as 
was shewn in our first Lecture, incapable of existing, in any high 
perfection, separately from the light of Eevelation ; is, nevertheless, 
not that which B,evelation, in the customary sense of the word, is 
given to afford. Eevelation assumes the other as something al- 
ready known, and takes its sentiments and expressions as vehicles 
for the conveyance of its own ideas ; — there being a perfect analogy 
between all that belongs to man as an inhabitant of a natural 
world, and belongs to or concerns him as the heir of a spiritual 
one; of course, between the light of nature and the light of heaven. 
Thus the analogical language of the Word of God, though it never 
uses abstract, metaphysical expressions, is not confined to the 
mention of the irrational and inanimate parts of nature, but em- 
braces all that arises out of man's inclinations and feelings as an 
animal and naturally rational being, and as a member of civil 
society; because all this answers, by a decided mutual relation, to 
that which belongs to his spiritual affections and feelings, as an 
immortal and spiritually rational being, designed to become a mem- 
ber of angelic society. The Divine Truth then, when descending 
into the world of nature, clothes itself, in part, with language taken 
from man's ideas as a naturally rational and social being, and in 
part, from his ideas as an animal being, or from the ideas of things 
necessaiy to his merely animal existence ; the whole being bottomed 
on the images presented to his thoughts by outward and material 
nature. Between all these and things purely spiritual and divine, 
there is a constant Eelation of Analogy: and the application of 
them, by Infinite Wisdom and Knowledge, to the expression of spi- 



132 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

ritual and divine subjects, forms the truly Divine Style of Writing, 
and marks the book in which it is found as a truly Divine Com- 
position. 

2. An observation of considerable importance is here necessary 
to be made. The argument urged with the greatest air of triumph 
by those who deny the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, is, that 
if the very words were dictated to the writers, the same phraseo- 
logy and style of language would every where prevail, and we 
should not, in these respects, find, in the different books, so 
much variety. All the strength of this argument lies in the suppo- 
sition, that the words and phrases themselves, if of divine inspira- 
tion, must have proceeded immediately, just as we read them, out 
of the mouth of God : but the view above developed shews that 
this could not have been the case, and yet that the human penmen 
had nothing to do with selecting the expressions. The very words 
of Scripture did not, we have seen, proceed, as we have them in 
natural language, from the mouth of God himself : but the emana- 
tion of Divine Truth from Him clothed itself with natural words 
in the natural world. Where could it thus clothe itself? Where, 
in the world of nature, could the Divine Speech find the words 
required for its natural expression ? Where, but in the minds of 
the human agents, who, as passive instruments under the divine 
c nerations, were made the mediums of writing and delivering it to 
the world ? The emanation of Divine Truth proceeded from the 
Lord, entering into and filling the minds of the writers, so as to 
take entire possession of all their faculties, clothed itself there with 
such words as it found their memories stored with : these it adapted 
to itself, so as to express the divine things intended with the 
utmost fulness ; but it did not infuse new words and phrases, such 
as the writers had not heard before. And as similar divine things 
may be expressed in a variety of ways, therefore the Holy Spirit, 
or emanation of Divine Truth, could find adequate, though varying 
uodes of expression, in the minds of all the different instruments 
it employed. Besides, though the divine things which various 
penmen were commissioned to write, had frequently a general simi- 
larity, there cannot be any absolute sameness; and it is highly 
reasonable to suppose, that the Divine Omniscience selected to 
compose the several books, particular individuals, whose peculiar 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 133 

acquirements and style of language were precisely those, which 
were best adapted to give the proper expression to the peculiar 
divine subjects which they were to be the organs of revealing; 
and there surely can be no doubt, that these always were persons 
who from their youth had been especially prepared by the Divine 
Providence, and directed to such pursuits and acquirements as 
were best calculated to adapt them for the holy office to which it 
was intended to call them. Although then every separate penman 
had, and must have had, according to the view here offered, his 
own peculiarity of style, this does not prevent his writings from 
being divinely inspired, even as to the very words ; since the Holy 
Spirit assumed the words in his mind, and thence dictated them 
to his pen. But whilst each writer had his peculiar style, the 
truly Divine Style is common to them all. This consists, we have 
seen, in conveying spiritual ideas by natural images, with unde- 
viating regularity, such as can only be adhered-to by that Omni- 
science to which the analogies that unite them are perfectly known: 
and this is done by all the writers of the Divine Word, though 
living in very distant ages, — though they had no means of settling 
the plan in concert, — and though many of them, certainly, did not 
understand the writings of each other, or even their own. The 
Divine Spirit which possessed them, — and which possessed them 
just while they spoke or wrote, and no longer, — was every thing 
and they, respectively, were nothing. 



&> 



3. Another remark of moment, here, also, demands insertion. 
It is customary with Biblical Critics, to consider inspiration as 
something inseparably attached to the persons inspired, so that 
whatever they might write, from the time of their receiving the 
endowment to their life's end, would be an inspired composition : 
and some even appear to consider the exercise of the gift as left 
entirely to the discretion of the party possessing it. That there is 
such a species of inspiration as this, we readily admit ; and also, 
that it was possessed by the writers of some of the books contained 
in the collection called the Bible, — perhaps by them all : but with- 
out an inspiration very different from this, imparted either in addi- 
tion to it or quite independently of it, no composition that can be 
called, in a strict and proper sense, "the Word of God," could 
ever have been written. This, we have seen, must be given by a 



134 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

plenary divine inspiration ; and such an inspiration, it is evident, 
instead of being a constant attendant on any one, could last no 
longer than while he was delivering the message, or was writing 
the book, for which it was afforded. It might return to the same 
person again, as it commonly did to the old prophets, or it might 
not : and whatever they might say or write during the intervals, 
could only partake of that inferior inspiration capable of being 
attached to a person ; and not necessarily of this. We have seen 
that this inferior inspiration is the only one now generally acknow- 
ledged to belong to any of the books contained in the Bible : we 
admit that some of these books may be composed from this kind 
of inspiration, and thence have no sense beside that of the letter : 
but we contend that the far greater quantity, both in bulk and 
number are certainly written by the higher inspiration, and have 
a spiritual sense throughout.* To construct such writings, or to 
impart such inspiration, the Divine Speech, or the Divine Word, 
which is the same thing as the Divine Truth, must have emanated, 
as a sphere of spiritual light, from the bosom of Deity into the 
circumference or lowest base of creation, which is the world of 
nature, and, filling the prepared minds of the human penmen, 
must there have clothed itself with natural ideas, or with images 
taken from the natural world, before it could be presented, in 
natural language, to mankind at large. 

This, it is presumed, must at least be allowed to be a probable 
and a philosophical view of the nature of divine inspiration: it 
will also, I am satisfied, be found to explain, better than any other 
theory, the pbamomena with which plenary inspiration must neces- 
sarily be attended : and I trust that whoever candidly and deeply 
examines the subject, will find, that this is absolutely the only 
way in which a revelation of Divine Truth — or a plenarily in- 
spired composition, — can be given, in natural language, from God 
to man. 

III. It will now be readily seen, that if the order above de- 
scribed must necessarily govern every real communication, in the 
shape of a written revelation, from God to man] if the Divine 
Truth must thus clothe itself with ideas and images taken from 
the world of nature, by the instrumentality of human minds, before 
* See Appendix, No. II. 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 135 

it could be brought into a natural form, and be presented to the 
inhabitants of a natural world ; and if the Divine Style of writing 
must thus follow the Law of that Analogy which indissolubly con- 
nects natural objects and ideas with such as are spiritual and 
divine ; — then the spiritual and divine wisdom which such a reve- 
lation must contain within it, could only be understood, by an 
application to it of this Law. And if, on an application of this 
Law to the books called the Holy Scriptures, it shall be found that 
they exhibit a coherent series of spiritual and divine instruction, 
it will then follow, that the Scriptures are such a revelation of 
Divine Truth presented to man in natural language ; that they are 
indeed the Divine Speech or Divine Word which has emanated 
from the bosom of Deity into the circumference or lowest sphere 
of creation. 

Some short specimens of the light which results from the appli- 
cation of the Rule above stated to the language of Scripture were 
given in our last Lecture : but it is intended, in the sequel of this 
and in the next, to adduce a few sets of examples from each of the 
various kinds of composition that are found in the Holy Word,— 
the prophetical, the historical, and the preceptive. 

IV.* Mankind in general are more inclined to accept a spiritual 
signification in the prophecies than in the other parts of the Divine 
Writings, on account of the mysterious character which they so 
palpably exhibit ; wherefore it will be proper, in the first instance, 
to shew the Applicability of the Science of Analogies, (for by this 
name, to avoid circuitous modes of expression, it may be expedient 
to denominate the system we have endeavoured to explain,) as a 
Eule for interpreting the prophetical parts of Holy Writ. 

In our second Lecture, after having offered various arguments 
to shew, that a Composition which is rightly denominated " the 
Word of God," must contain, and that the Holy Scriptures profess 
to contain, treasures of wisdom beyond what is extant on the sur- 
face, we adduced some general testimonies from modern writers to 
the certainty of this fact, and we intimated that we should mention 

* It would be more proper to mark this, and all the Sections which follow 
to the end of the next Lecture, as Subdivisions under the last General Head ; 
but to avoid the inconvenience of beginning a Lecture with a Subordinate Sec- 
tion, the principal of them are marked as Leading Divisions. 



136 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

others in the sequel. We will here then notice the sentiments of 
Biblical Critics on what is called v he Double Sense of Prophecy ; 
as we propose to do hereafter on the typical nature of the Scripture 
History ; and we shall find that we still have great names to coun- 
tenance (if Truth requires countenance,) the views we wish to 
establish. In the days of man's integrity, doubtless, truth was 
seen, by intuition, as soon as it was heard : they then had no need 
to " teach every man his neighbour and every man his brother*; " 
they could decide at once with an infallible " Yea, yea, or Nay, 
nay;" and it is unquestionably true, as the Divine Instructor 
affirms, that " whatsoever is more than these cometh of evilf," or 
is a consequence of that obscurity of intellect which evil has intro- 
duced. But the axioms are few indeed on which we can now thus 
unhesitatingly pronounce. Beyond the most common principles, 
we now require reasoning to assist our judgment ; and where the 
subject is new to us, we often fear to yield even to the clearest 
train of induction, unless it comes recommended to us by the judg- 
ment of others. Now when any system that is presented to us is 
entirely new, or has not before been adopted by any whose autho- 
rity we respect, it evidently cannot have this direct recommen- 
dation : but it may have such an indirect one, as is, perhaps, still 
stronger. For if we find that others, though they have not hit upon 
the same principle, have yet evidently felt the want of it ; — if they 
have seen the necessity of admitting some general sentiment of 
which that proposed is only a more exact modification ; — if their 
ideas, though evidently true in the main, are attended with some 
deficiency which the principle suggested supplies : — if what in them 
was vague, unsatisfactory, incoherent, becomes, by the proposed 
addition, determinate, conclusive, and compact : then have we, in 
their partial dissent, a stronger recommendation of the correction 
offered, than could have attended the fullest acquiescence. They 
start a problem ; if the proposed theory affords precisely that which 
was felt to be wanting to its complete solution, then both support 
each other. Now this appears to me to be the true state of the 
case, between the Science of Analogies, as a universal Rule for the 
interpretation of the Scriptures, and the doctrine of eminent writers 
respecting the double sense of prophecy, and the typical import 
of the scripture history. They advance a general principle, which 
* Jer. xxxi. 34. f Matt. v. 37. 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 137 

none can deny, without maintaining a system of interpretation, or 
rather of mangling, truly Procrustean : and the Science of Ana- 
logies, though not recurred to by them, — at least not in a form 
sufficiently extensive and definite, affords the only means of satis- 
factorily demonstrating their general principle. 

1. As some theologians of modern times have attempted to deny 
any but a literal sense to the Word of God in general, they have 
also, to preserve consistency, been obliged to deny any more than 
a single meaning to the prophetical writings ; although this denial 
cannot be maintained without charging the evangelists with gross 
ignorance, and with mis-application of the prophecies which they 
have quoted. However, the great violence which must be done to 
the Scriptures if this be asserted, has hitherto prevented this 
opinion from becoming very general : and the weight of most of 
our great authorities, in this country at least, is decidedly in favour 
of the opinion, that the prophetical writings in general have a 
double sense. Thus Home lays it down as a Canon of interpre- 
tation, in his Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of 
the Holy Scriptures, that " the same prophecies frequently have a 
double meaning, and refer to different events, the one near, the 
other remote ; the one temporal, the other spiritual, or perhaps 
eternal* :" and this rule he supports by very convincing quotations 
from Dr. Woodhouse, Bishop Home, Dr. Eandolph, the dis- 
tinguished German critic, Eambach, and the celebrated Latin com- 
mentator on Isaiah, Professor Vitringa. As, however, in the first 
Lecture, I spoke of Bishop Lowth, as being one of those who have 
assisted to introduce degrading ideas of the inspiration of the 
Scriptures, I will here avail myself of his testimony in an instance, 
in which I think he has well employed his elegant pen in vindi- 
cating the spiritual nature of the Sacred Writings : — though this 
drawback adheres to his remarks ; that he treats the prophetic gift 
as something inherent in the prophets themselves, regarding their 
inspiration as a permanent and personal endowment ; which, we 
have seen above, is incompatible with the idea of plenary inspi- 
ration, such as that of the prophets must necessarily have been. 

In the notes to his version of Isaiah, Dr. Lowth contends, that 
the whole of the writings of that prophet, from the 40th chapter 
* VoL II. Pt. II. Ch. vii. Canon 1. 



133 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

to the end of the book, refer, in their ulterior and more important 
meaning, to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, aud the spiritual 
kingdom to be established by him; while he maintains, that, in 
their more immediate sense, they relate to the return of the Jews 
from their captivity in Babylon. These are his words: "As the 
subject of his [Isaiah's] subsequent prophecies was to be chiefly 
of the consolatory kind, he opens them with giving a promise 
of the restoration of the kingdom [of David], and the return 
of the people from captivity, by the merciful interposition of God 
m their favour. But the views of the prophet are not confined to 
this event : as the restoration of the royal family, and of the tribe 
of Judah, which would otherwise have soon become undistin- 
guished, and have been irrecoverably lost, was necessary, in the 
design and order of providence, for the fulfilling of God's promise 
of establishing a more glorious and an everlasting kingdom, under 
the Messiah, to be born of the tribe of Judah, and of the family 
of David; the prophet connects these two events together, and 
hardly ever treats of the former without throwing in some intima- 
tions of the latter ; and sometimes is so fully possessed with the 
glories of the future more remote kingdom, that he seems to leave 
the more immediate subject of his commission almost out of the 
question. Indeed," the Bishop adds, "this evangelical sense of 
the prophecy is so apparent, and stands forth in so strong a light, 
that some interpreters cannot see that it has any other ; and will 
not allow the prophecy to have any relation at all to the return 
from the captivity of Babylon." As, however, Dr. Lowth was of 
opinion, that, in its primary sense, the prophecy relates to the 
return from Babylon, he here enters into a view of it in that refer- 
ence : and he sums up his remarks on the subject thus : " These 
things considered, I have not the least doubt, that the return of 
the Jews from Babylon is the fi?st, though not the principal, thing 
in the prophet's view. The Redemption from Babylon is clearly 
foretold; and at the same time is employed as an image to 
shadow out a redemption of an infinitely higher and more im- 
portant nature." He makes some other strong remarks upon the 
necessity of admitting the farther signification of the prophecy ; 
and concludes with these words : " If the literal sense of this pro- 
phecy, as above explained, cannot be questioned, much less, surely, 
can the spiritual; which I think is allowed on all hands, even by 



IT.] 



THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 139 



Grotius himself. If both are to be admitted, here is a plain ex- 
ample of the Mystical Allegory, or double sense, as it is commonly 
called, of prophecy ; which the sacred writers of the Neto Testament 
clearly suppose, and according to which they frequently frame their 
interpretations of the Old Testament."* 

Here then the learned Bishop strongly contends for allowing, in 
some instances, the existence in prophecy of the mystical allegory 
or double sense. Indeed, the fact is so plain to a student of the 
prophets, that it almost forces itself upon the most sceptical. But 
I apprehend that every mind not previously aware of the state of 
opinion on this subject, must be somewhat surprised at the saving 
clause, "in some instances" which I have here introduced, that I 
might not seem to stretch the authority of the Bishop farther than 
he intended: and because, as observed in the second Lecture, 
though most modern writers on Scripture Interpretation admit the 
necessity of having recourse to a spiritual sense in some instances, 
few of them accept it in all. Will not, however, every person who 
comes to the question unbiassed, on finding even the most cautious 
critics compelled to adopt a spiritual sense in some instances, be 
ready to exclaim, "Why not allow the prophets, and the Scrip- 
tures in general, to be written according to a regular system ? If 
there is a double sense in some places, why not in all ? It surely 
would be a far more consistent mode of interpretation to admit 
this than otherwise. You then make the Scriptures uniform 
throughout, and take away that uncertainty which must attend 
all attempts to explain them, when it is supposed that one part 
must be understood literally, but that another may be understood 
spiritually, and we are left to jump, as caprice may dictate, from 
the letter to the spirit and from the spirit to the letter, without 
knowing, with any certainty, where we are to abide by the one, or 
where we are to look for the other." — We shall touch again, in 
our next Lecture, upon the inconsistencies into which expositors 
fall, by following so vague and unsettled a mode of interpretation : 
yet by admitting a spiritual sense in any case whatever, they 
establish the general principle, which, when extended and rendered 
uniform, in the manner w r e propose, completely solves all the 
phsenomena of the case : and thus their maimed and limping 
system bears testimony to that by which its defects are supplied. 
* Lowth's Isaiah, Notes on Ch. xl. 



140 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LEG!. 

Though itself but a mis-shapen shadow, it proves the existence of 
the symmetrical reality, by an imperfect apprehension of which it 
was produced. On this subject we will only add, here, that if it 
were seen that the prophecies, and indeed the other parts of the 
Scriptures, every where have a literal sense, in which natural 
events, connected with the fate of Israel and the surrounding 
nations, are referred to, but that all these natural events are them- 
selves types and representations of things of spiritual, yea, of 
eternal moment ; then, at any rate, we should regard the Scrip- 
tures, as being every where consistent with themselves, — every 
where written upon one uniform system : and we should only 
want the knowledge of the Eelation which all natural things bear 
to spiritual, to possess a Eule of certain interpretation. 

2. Even an approach to this has been made by that great 
genius, Sir Isaac Newton ; who, though his explanations of pro- 
phecy have not been generally accepted, yet laid down a Rule of 
Analogy, or Mutual Eelation, between the things mentioned and 
the things meant, which succeeding commentators have eagerly 
adopted. But alas ! his ride does not extend far enough ; it not 
pointing out an analogy between natural things and spiritual 
things, but only between natural things of a lower order and those 
of a higher : however, as being an approximation to the true rule 
of interpretation, and thus tending, as far as it goes, to point to 
the true rule and confirm it, we will state his system as explained 
by himself. He delivers it in these words : " The figurative lan- 
guage of the Prophets is taken from the analogy between the 
world natural, and an empire or kingdom considered as a world 
politic. Accordingly, the whole world natural, consisting of heaven 
and earth, signifies the whole world politic, consisting of thrones 
and people, or so much of it as is considered in prophecy : and the 
things in that world signify the analogous things in this. For the 
heavens and the things therein signify thrones and dignities, and 
those who enjoy them ; and the earth, with the things thereon, 
the inferior people ; and the lowest parts of the earth, called 
Hades or Hell, the lowest or most miserable part of them. — 
Great earthquakes, and the shaking of heaven and earth, are put 
for the shaking of kingdoms, so as to distract and overthrow 
them; the creating a new heaven and earth, and the passing 



IT.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 141 

of an old one, or the beginning and end of a world, for the rise 
and ruin of a body politic, signified thereby. The sun, for the 
whole species and race of kings, in the kingdoms of the world 
politic ; the moon, for the body of the common peopie ; considered 
as the king's wife ; the stars, for subordinate princes and great 
men ; or for bishops and rulers of the people of God, when the sun 
is Christ : — the setting of the sun, moon, and stars ; darkening of 
the sun, turning the moon into blood, and falling of the stars, for 
for the ceasing of a kingdom."* 

This idea is certainly very striking : accordingly, it is taken up 
and carried on by 13ishop Warburton, in these words : " The old 
Asiatic style, so highly figurative, seems, by what Ave find of its 
remains in the prophetic language of the Sacred Writings, to have 
been evidently fashioned to the mode of ancient hieroglyphics, both 
curiologic and tropical. — Of the second kind, which answers to the 
tropical hieroglyphic, is the calling empires, kings, and nobles, by 
the names of the heavenly luminaries, the sun, moon, and stars ; 
their temporary disasters, or entire overthow, by eclipses and ex- 
tinctions : the destruction of the nobility, by stars falling from the 
firmament ; hostile invasions, by thunder and tempestuous winds ; 
and leaders of armies, conquerors, and founders of empires, by 
lions, bears, leopards, goats, or high trees. In a word, the pro- 
phetic style seems to be a speaking Hieroglyphic, "f 

Here, certainly, the existence in Scripture of a St\/le of Writing 
formed upon the principle of Mutual Relation, by putting some 
lower thing to stand as the type of a higher to which it is per- 
ceived to answer, is clearly recognized, and the necessity of admit- 
ting it is strongly enforced. In the theory, then, of these eminent 
writers, in which, as stated above, they have been generally fol- 
lowed by later expositors, we certainly have an approximation to 
the revival of the Science of Analogies : Dr. Warburton also ex- 
plicitly affirms the opinion advocated in the latter part of our last 
Lecture, — that this Science, in ancient times, was extensively 
understood ; — so extensively, according to him, as to give a pecu- 
liar character to the compositions of the countries where it was 
chiefly cultivated, the language of which he thence denominates 
" the old Asiatic Style." 

* Observations on Prophecy, Pt. i. ch. 2. 
f Div. Legation, Book iv. Sect. 4. 



142 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

3. But, is the principle of Analogy, as broached by these 
authors, to form a key to the interpretation of the " speaking- 
Hieroglyphics " of the prophetic style of writing, sufficiently defi- 
nite, and sufficiently extended ? Will it lead us to the knowledge 
of that which may properly be called, the spiritual sense of Scrip- 
ture ? — any otherwise, that is, than as pointing to the right path 
which will conduct us to this object ; — as suggesting the principle, 
which, when rectified and carried on, will attain this end. They 
interpret, we see, one natural thing, as the sun or moon, to mean 
another natural thing of a different order, as the king or people ; 
and it is evident that the sense thus obtained is but a natural 
sense, and not a spiritual one, after all. The general truth of the 
natural interpretation thus established, is, indeed, in many in- 
stances, very evident. We have seen that Dr. Lowth affirms that 
the return of the Jews from Babylon is treated of by Isaiah, from 
the fortieth chapter to the end of his prophecies, though in lan^ 
guage, even in this application, far from admitting a literal signifi- 
cation : so in the thirteenth chapter, the destruction of Babylon is 
described in the symbolic terms which form the chief subject of 
the observations on the prophetic style above adduced from Sir 
Isaac Newton: "The stars of heaven and the constellations thereof 
shall not give their light : the sun shall be darkened in his going 
forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine* :" — and 
certain it is that the Babylonian empire was entirely overthrown, 
and that the Jews were restored by its conqueror to their country. 
These events, then, were "thejirst though not the principal things 
in the prophet's view." Still it must be most certain, that ac- 
counts, though delivered prophetically and in symbolic language, of 
the revolutions of kingdoms, can never be things intended to 
occupy a place in the Word of God, any otherwise than as types 
of things of far greater moment. Accordingly, Bishop Lowth 
assures us, that " the redemption from Babylon is employed as an 
image, to shadow out a redemption of an infinitely higher and more 
important nature :" if so, it is the height of inconsistency to 
imagine, that any of the numerous other predictions which have 
natural and temporal catastrophes and deliverances as the first 
things in view, have not also such as are spiritual and eternal as 
the principal. Could it then be proved that all the prophecies of 
* Isaiah xiii. 10. 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 143 

Scripture have thus had a fulfilment in external events ; and could 
all their mysterious language be clearly appropriated to correspond- 
ing historical circumstances ; it would still be true, that the spiri- 
tual things described in the ulterior sense of the prophetic language, 
were typically pictured by such external events ; — that a spiritual 
fulfilment was at the same time primarily regarded, and that oi 
this was given, in the corresponding historical circumstances, a 
symbolic scenical representation. In agreement, then, with the 
learned authors to whom we have referred, it is to be assumed as 
an unquestionable fact, that the language of prophecy is composed 
of series of analogies and mutual relations : but, in agreement with 
the character and necessary design of a divinely inspired compo- 
sition, the analogies and relations properly intended, are not those 
which may be traced between certain natural things and certain 
other natural things, but between natural things and spiritual. — 
The general spiritual objects regarded are, the Lord, the soul of 
man, his state hereafter, and the church, as the medium of minis- 
tering spiritual things to man. 

We will here repeat the quotation on the science of analogies, 
above adduced from Sir Isaac Newton, so altered as to apply to 
the analogy between the natural things mentioned in Scripture, 
and the spiritual things to which they properly answer, instead 
of the other natural things to which that author referred them.* 
" The figurative language of the prophets is taken from the 
analogy between the world natural and a church or congregation 
of people considered as a world spiritual. Accordingly the whole 
world natural, consisting of heaven and earth, signifies the whole 
world spiritual, consisting of an internal and an external prin- 
ciple, answering to what is called, in individuals, the internal 
and external man ; and the things in that world signify the anala- 
gous things in this. Tor the heavens and the things therein sig- 
nify the internal 'principles, and all the heavenly graces, constituent 
of a church, — or, all that belongs to the internal man; and the 
earth, with the things thereon, the outioard form, and order, pro* 
fession and practice, of the same, — or, all that belongs to the exter- 
nal man : and the lowest parts of the earth, called Hades or Hell, 
the external man when entirely separated from the internal, so as 
to be the mere abode of infernal lusts and insane follies, with the 
* The alterations are printed in Italics. 



144 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

state of misery consequent thereupon hereafter; — it also sometimes 
means a state of temptation, because in this, man appears to he in, 
or in danger erf, such a condition. Great earthquakes, and the 
shaking of heaven and earth, are put for the shaking of churches, 
so as to distract and overthrow them, or at least to occasion a 
remarkable change in their state : the new heaven and earth, and 
the passing of an old one, or the beginning and end of a world, 
for the rise and ruin of a society of men as constituting a church. 
The sun is put for the first of heavenly graces constituent of a true 
church, which is love to the Lord and our neighbour ; the moon, 
for that true faith ichich is the proper consort of such love or 
charity ; the stars, for subordinate particulars of divine knowledge, 
— or for eminent lights of the church, when the sun is Christ : the 
setting of the sun, moon, and stars, — darkening of the sun, turning 
the moon into blood, and falling of the stars, — for the ceasing of 
a church, or of a society from constituting a church, hi consequence 
of a pure love to the Lord, faith in Him, and a knowledge of 
spiritual subjects, being no longer left among them, or being per- 
verted into their opposiles. ,} 

Now though the dry statement, that such is the spiritual mean- 
ing of certain natural emblems*, may not carry the conviction of 
its truth to every mind; yet I think the significations here assigned 
to the great objects of " the world natural" will at once be seen to 
have more to recommend them, than Sir Isaac's application of 
them to the objects of " the world politic :" for the analogies we 
have suggested are founded in the very nature and constitution of 
things, and do not depend, as do some of his, upon the arbitrary 
institutions of society. His testimony, however, in favour of the 
principle, is highly valuable. And as many learned and intelligent 
writers have thus seen the necessity of resorting to analogies be- 
tween different orders of existences, to obtain a key for decyphering 
the "speaking hieroglyphics" of divine prophecy; so, I trust, it 
must readily be admitted, by all who may think that our former 
Lecture succeeded in establishing the existence of a real Analogy 
between Natural things and Spiritual, that this affords the true 
Eule for interpreting the language of prophetic inspiration. If, 
also, the Scriptures are the Word of God, they must be designed 

* See the several particulars taken up, and more fully explained, in the 
Appendix, No. III. 



IV.l THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 145 



to convey, not natural, but spiritual instruction : But the Scrip- 
tures, we find, consist in their letter, as is remarkably obvious in 
the prophets, of continued series of natural images : How then can 
they convey spiritual instruction, unless there be such a fixed rela- 
tion between spiritual ideas and natural ones, that the latter will 
admit of being regularly translated into the former? Admitting 
these premises, the applicability of the Science of Spiritual Analo- 
gies, as a Eule for the interpretation of prophecy, and as an im- 
provement on the natural analogies proposed by Newton and 
Warburton, cannot be doubted. And this will convert the mate- 
rial images of the letter, into a mirror resplendent with heavenly 
glories ; as the gross substances composing the disk of the moon 
reflect to us the light of the sun. 

V. Since then we find, altogether, so great a concurrence of 
circumstances, leading us to expect, first, that a real Revelation 
from God, in natural language, must contain a spiritual sense 
beyond that of the letter, and must be composed according to the 
law of the Analogy necessarily subsisting between spiritual things 
and natural ; and, secondly, that the books commonly received as 
the Word of God, do, in general, "contain such a spiritual sense, 
and are written according to this Law: we proceed to ascertain 
the fact, in regard to the prophetical writings in particular, by 
trying, in two or three instances, what sort of sense is obtained 
by applying the Science of Analogies to their interpretation. We 
will select an example from each of the three prophetic authorities 
of the Divine Word; — the Prophets of the Old Testament, the 
Lord Jesus Christ when on earth, and the Apocalyptic Divine. 

1. In the book of Ezekiel we have this very extraordinary pro- 
phetic declaration : " And thou, son of man, thus saith the Lord 
God : Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the 
field, Assemble yourselves, and come ; gather yourselves on every 
side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacri- 
fice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh and drink 
blood. Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood 
of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of 
bullocks, all of them fatlings, of Bashan. And ye shall eat fat till 
ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which 

7 



146 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

I have sacrificed for you. Thus shall ye be filled at my table with 
horses and chariots, with mighty men and with all men of war, 
saith the Lord God."* 

These words form part of a prophecy, occupying the whole of 
two chapters, against Gog and Magog, who are described as about 
to invade the land of Israel, there to meet with total destruction : 
and I have selected them as our first example of the application of 
the Science of Analogies to the interpretation of the language of 
prophecy, because they form one of the passages in the prophetic 
writings that appear most deeply wrapped in mystery, and of 
which the literal sense is involved in the greatest obscurity. The 
mere sense of the words, is, indeed, sufficiently obvious ; but what the 
events are, in the history of the Jews and other nations, to which the 
prophecy may be supposed to point ; or, in the language of Bishop 
Lowth, what was " the flrst thing in the prophet's view" when he 
delivered it; has never been satisfactorily shewn. In such pas- 
sages as this, then, the certainty that the Divine Word must con- 
tain a spiritual sense, and the need of a key for the decyphering 
of it, are more peculiarly evident. And as the existence of such 
passages is calculated to throw much light upon the nature of 
divine prophecy in general, some remarks upon them may not be 
out of place. 

(1.) Although it appears that prophecy sometimes assumes the 
form of anticipated history, and receives its first fulfilment in events 
affecting the fates of different nations, yet in some instances it will 
be found no otherwise to partake of the nature of anticipated 
history, than as parable approaches to that of past history ; that 
is, it is similar in form, but is to be understood as pure allegory, 
in which, though the ideas conveyed by the letter are perfectly 
distinct, they do not announce any corresponding natural events, 
but are to be spiritually understood altogether. Another very 
remarkable instance of this kind of prophecy, in which the spiritual 
sense alone is intended for fulfilment, occurs in Isaiah, who opens 
his sixty-third chapter with a sublime dialogue between the prophet 
and a glorious Personage who is presented to the rapt eye of the 
seer ; " Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments 
from Bozrah ? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the 
greatness of his strength ? " "I that speak in righteousness, mighty 
* Ezek. xxxix. 17 to 20. 






IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 147 

to save.'* " Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy gar- 
ments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat?" "I have trodden 
the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with me : 
for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury ; 
and their blood shall be sprinkled on my garments, and I will stain 
all my raiment : for the clay of vengeance is in my heart, and the 
year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none 
to help, and I wondered that there was none to uphold : therefore 
mine own arm brought salvation to me, and my fury it upheld 
me*," &c. The impossibility of applying this prediction to any 
historical events, must be evident to all whose minds are not pre- 
occupied with a system : but I will here deliver my sentiments in 
the words of Bishop Lowth. Speaking of this passage, he observes, 
" It is by many learned interpreters supposed, that Judas Macca- 
baeus and his victories make the subject of it [the above passage]. 
What claim Judas can have to so great an honour, will, I think, be 
very difficult to make out ; or how the attributes of the great Per- 
son introduced can possibly suit him. Could Judas call himself 
the Announcer of Righteousness, mighty to save ? Could he talk 
of the day of vengeance being in his heart, and the year of his 
redeemed being come ? or that his own arm wrought salvation for 
him ? Besides, what were the exploits of Judas in regard to the 
Idumaeans ? he overcame them in battle, and slew twenty thousand 
of them. And John Hyrcanus, his brother Simon's son and suc- 
cessor, who is called in to help cut the accomplishment of the pro- 
phecy, gave them another defeat some time afterward, and com- 
pelled them by force to become proselytes to the Jewish religion. — 
Are these events adequate to the prophet's lofty prediction?" The 
weakness of such a supposition is further exposed by our learned 
author : and then he adds, " I conclude, therefore, that this pro- 
phecy has not the least relation to Judas Maccabseus. It may be 
asked, To whom, and to what event, does it relate ? I can only answer, 
that Ilznoio of no event in history to which, from its importance and 
circumstances, it can be applied : unless, perhaps, to the destruction 
of Jerusalem and the Jewish Polity : which in the gospel is called 
the coming of Christf , and the days of vengeance. But though 
this prophecy must have its accomplishment, there is no necessity 
for supposing that it has been already accomplished. There are 
* Ver. 1 to 5. f But it is not called a coming from Edom and Bozrah. 



148 PLENAKl INSPIRATION OF [lECT. 

prophecies, which, intimate a great slaughter of the enemies of God 
and his people, which remain to be fulfilled : these, in Ezekiel, ch. 
xxxviii., and in the Eevelation of St. John, ch. xx., are called Gog 
and Magog. This prophecy of Isaiah may possibly refer to the 
same or the like event. "We need not be at a loss to determine the 
Person who is here introduced as stained with treading the wine- 
press, if we consider how St. John, in the Eevelation, has applied 
this image of the prophet. Eev. xix. 13, 15, 16."* 

Dr. Lowth here explicitly gives his opinion, that neither Ezekiel's 
prophecy of Gog and Magog, nor Isaiah's vision of the Lord's 
coming from Edom, have yet received any outward accomplishment : 
but he evidently is at a loss to reconcile this conveniently with his 
system, which led him to suppose, that all the predictions of Scrip- 
ture must have such an accomplishment; wherefore he suggests, 
that though this must be the fact, it may be postponed sine die. 
It is evident, however, that if no historical events answering to 
these two prophetic declarations occurred previously to the gospel 
era, nor even up to the present times ; so great is the change 
which has taken place in the situation of the world and its nations, 
that no such events can take place hereafter. There is no longer a 
country of Edom, and its metropolis, Bozrah, from whence an 
Announcer of Eighteousness and Eedeemer of his people can come: 
and though it may be true that the Gog and Magog of the Scrip- 
tures, in their literal sense, are the ancient Scythians ; yet, should 
we recognise these again in the modern Tartars ; or, with one of the 
multitude of expositors who applied the dark prophecies of Scrip- 
ture to the events of the last great war, could we even discover the 
Gog and Magog of Ezekiel and John in the Autocrat of Russia and 
his subjects; it would be idle to expect that these will at any 
period be gathered together in the land of Israel, to be there 
whelmed in utter destruction ; since the land of Israel can never 
again be put in the situation which the prophecy supposes, — in- 
habited by Jews returned from the captivity in Babylon. It really 
then is impossible that these prophecies should ever obtain an 
external fulfilment: they must have a spiritual one, or none. 

Now the embarrassment which such passages occasion to those 
who hold the common sentiments respecting the design of the pro- 
phetic writings, arises hence: that although, with Dr. Lowth, 
* Lowth's Isaiah, Notes on ch. lxiiL 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 149 

expositors affirm certain outward events to be " the first, but not 
the principal^ things in the prophet's view," they at the same time 
make this subordinate accomplishment more indispensable than the 
other : for while they look every where for an outward reference of 
prophecy, they only allow it to have a spiritual sense in some in- 
stances, — in those places, where it is too plain to be overlooked. 
But if the converse of this idea be the true one ; if " the principal 
thing in the prophet's view," (or rather, in the view of the Inspirer 
of the prophets,) is the principal thing indeed ; if to impart in- 
struction on spiritual subjects is, in fact, the only thing regarded 
by the Divine Mind in giving a revelation ; and if this is equally 
imparted, by the language of prophecy, when it speaks, in the 
letter, of natural events, whether such events were ever acted, or 
intended to be acted, on the outward theatre of the world, or not : 
— then we have a view of the nature of divine prophecy which can 
occasion no embarrassment, and we shall not be compelled to tor- 
ture the facts, to make them agree with the hypothesis. 

Although, therefore, as admitted above, the Scriptures have 
every where a literal sense, in which natural events, connected 
with the fate of Israel and the surrounding nations, are referred 
to ; it is by no means essential to the truth of prophecy, that the 
natural events spoken of should actually be performed. In general, 
it may be so : if any man can prove it to be so always, we can 
have no objection; since, wherever an outward fulfilment takes 
place, the actual occurrences become, themselves, t} r pes of the 
same spiritual things as are principally referred to in the words 
of the prophecy. But if the divine origin of prophecy can still be 
maintained, even where no outward accomplishment of it can be 
satisfactorily shewn, the authority of Eevelation is certainly made 
more secure. And it is well known, that though many of the 
predictions of Scripture have had a clear outward fulfilment in 
some of their leading points, yet this can seldom be distinctly 
traced through the subordinate particulars: which throws over 
them so much obscurity, that the Infidel finds a pretence for 
rejecting the application altogether. Such rejection is certainly 
unjust. Many Scripture prophecies have had so plain an outward 
fulfilment in their leading points, that, while these alone are re- 
garded, there is no room for dispute : the conclusion then should 
be, that the particulars which cannot so well be applied to out- 



150 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

ward events, are at the same time thrown in, not to invalidate the 
former, but to lead to the inference, that spiritual tilings, of far 
higher moment, are referred to by the whole. For the same pur- 
pose, important prophecies, like that before us, occasionally occur, 
to which, unless we allow them a spiritual sense, we cannot assign 
any consistent sense at all. Thus, the whole is arranged with ad- 
mirable wisdom. Many predictions are given, which have had, in 
their main points, so striking an outward accomplishment, as is 
calculated to awaken the attention even of those who will believe 
nothing which they cannot verify by their outward senses; and 
upon a closer inspection other parts will be found, calculated to 
raise the mind to more elevated contemplations, and to satisfy the 
understanding, that Divine Prophecy has higher objects than to 
announce the fate of nations, or even than, by such marks of 
Omniscience, to evince the divine origin of Eevelation. 

(2.) That the prophecy of Ezekiel before us, of the invasion of 
the Land of Israel by Gog and his consequent destruction, has no 
connexion with the affairs of the Israelites or any other nations in 
particular, thus was not intended to have any outward accomplish- 
ment, is evident from the parallel passage in the Eevelation, referred 
to in the extract above given from Bishop Lowth. In Ezekiel, the 
irruption of Gog is described as taking place, when the people of 
Israel, having returned from captivity, are enjoying their country 
in peace ; — " It is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall 
dwell safely all of them* ;" — " Therefore, son of man, prophesy, 
and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord God ; In that day, when 
my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it ? And 
thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and 
many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great 
company and a mighty army ; and thou shalt come up against my 
peopje of Israel, as a cloud to cover the landf ;" &c. Very similar 
are the circumstances referred to in the parallel passage of the 
Eevelation, though they are there described under very different 
images. An interval of security is promised, and represented as a 
period in which the martyrs "lived and reigned with Christ a 
thousand years! ;" after which the desperate enemy is to invade 
Judaea and besiege Jerusalem : " And when the thousand years are 
expired, Satau shall be loosed out of prison, and shall go out to 
* Ezek. xxxviii. 8. f Ver. 14, 15, 16. J Rev. xx. 4. 






IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 151 

deceive the nations which are in the four quarters [corners] of the 
earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle; the 
number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on 
the breadth of the earth [the land of Israel], and compassed the 
camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire* came 
down from God out of heaven, and devoured them."f Now it is 
perfectly evident, that the latter of these two predictions is not 
given as detailing occurrences which were to take place according 
to the letter. Since the church of the Lord, instead of being con- 
fined, as under the Jewish dispensation, to the territory of Palestine, 
is spread over a great portion of the globe, it is impossible for its 
members to be surrounded by hordes of barbarians collected from 
" the four corners," or remotest extremities, of the earth, and to 
be shut up in any " beloved city," in the land of Judea or any 
where else. The prophecy, doubtless, must be fulfilled ; but only 
in its spiritual sense can it be fulfilled: of course, the spiritual 
sense only is that which is intended. And what other conclusion 
can be drawn respecting the parallel prophecy of Ezekiel, the main 
circumstances of which are similar, though more particulars are 
detailed? No outward fulfilment of it took place, between the 
period in which it was delivered by Ezekiel and that in which the 
Revelation was given to John ; and after this time, no other fulfil- 
ment of it was practicable than such as was alone applicable, to 
the parallel prediction of the New Testament prophet: if, then, the 
one was never intended to have any but a spiritual fulfilment, so, 
neither, was the other. (I deem it needless to notice the attempts 
mat have been made to find a solution of Ezekiel's prediction in 
me troubles which the Jews experienced from the Macedonian 
kings of Syria. Gog and Magog, who inhabited, according to the 
Eevelation, "the four corners" of the earth, and, according to 
Ezekiel, " the sides of the north*," both which phrases are evi- 
dently designed to express extreme remoteness, cannot possibly be 
names for Syria, the immediate neighbour of Judsea : nor was any 
attack upon Judsea by the Antiochi attended with the total de- 
struction of the invading nation. All judicious critics, therefore, 
with Dr. Lowth, reject such an application of the prophecy, as 
totally unworthy of its majesty and importance.) 

* Compare Ezek. xxxviii. 22, and xxxix. 6. f Rev. xx. 7, S,':9» 

J Ch, xxxix. 2, marginal translation. 



152 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

(3.) If then in this prophecy, we are constrained to look for a 
spiritual interpretation, let ns see how this will be developed by the 
Science of Analogies. The Israelites, as being anciently the people 
who alone possessed a knowledge of the true God, were, as was 
shewn in our second Lecture by the testimony of the Apostle Paul, 
types of the true Church of the Lord, and of its true members, 
under every dispensation; and the land they inhabited evidently 
had a similar representation : the land itself represented the church 
with all that properly belongs to it, in regard especially to the 
graces by the presence of which the church exists, either in indi- 
viduals or societies ; and its metropolis, Jerusalem, also represented 
the church, but as to the more interior and immediate abode of it 
in the human mind ; whilst the temple with its worship were ex- 
pressive of the Lord's presence, and communion with him, in the 
inmost of all. Now if the land of Judaea thus symbolizes the true 
Church and all the graces which properly constitute it, Analogy 
must lead us to conclude, that the countries around it represent 
the exterior relations of the church, — which are such general 
principles in the mind of man as have a greater or less degree of 
affinity with those which are constituent of the church, — according 
as they are nearer to the land of Israel or farther off from it . and 
those which were most remote of all, must be symbolic of such 
principles in regard to religion as are most gross and external, — 
most distant from every thing that belongs to a true internal 
church. But the application of Analogy to the formation of 
a system of Spiritual Geography, demands a more exact con- 
sideration. 

(4.) The mind of man evidently consists of a great number of 
affectuous and intellectual faculties and tendencies, very distinct 
from each other. The love of God and our neighbour, for instance, 
are very different principles from the love of worldly power and 
worldly possessions ; and those intellectual exercises which are 
conversant with divine and heavenly subjects, no less vary from 
those which are confined to matters of a corporeal and earthly 
nature : and it is evidently congenial to our natural feelings and 
perceptions, to assign to the former of each of these classes of sen- 
timents, a higher and more interior seat in the mind, than to the 
latter ; we acknowledge, in common discourse, the one to be sub- 
lime and exalted feelings and contemplations, the other to be such 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 153 

ps are low and gro veiling. Nor will our conceptions on this subject 
be much altered, whatever may be the theoretical views which we 
are inclined to entertain of the nature of the mind. If, with one 
class of metaphysicians, we believe the mind to be one simple 
principle, the whole of which is concerned in every one of its exer- 
cises, though under a distinct modification in each; then we must 
consider the whole mind, when under the influence of heavenly 
love and wisdom, to be in a sublime and exalted state, or to be 
under a modification of that description : or if, with others, we 
conceive the mind, like the body, to consist of a great variety of 
organs, each having its proper function ; then we must consider 
those which are the seats of disinterested benevolence and of the 
perceptions of divine and heavenly subjects, to be placed in an 
elevated and interior region, and those which are appropriated to 
grosser tendencies and mean conceptions, to be respectively low 
and external. Our observations here proceed upon the supposition, 
that the latter view of the nature of the mind is the true one ; but 
we have mentioned the other to shew, that, should the opinion that 
the mind is one simple principle be correct, the views we assume 
of the higher and lower nature of its various emotions and contem- 
plations would still be applicable to it, and would only require a 
little alteration in the mode of stating them. However, let us sup- 
pose the miud itself to be composed of distinct organs, appropri- 
ated to distinct affections and distinct classes of thought: It is 
true that to immaterial principles we cannot assign any of the rela- 
tions of space or place; and yet it is certain that we are so sensible 
of the existence of a determinate analogy between these and the 
immaterial mind and its properties, as continually to apply to the 
latter, terms which properly denote the relations of place ; thus w- 
talk of a great mind and a little mind, a lofty mind and a low 
mind ; of elevated desires and of grovelling ones, of liigli thoughts 
and of creeping ones ; of an internal and deep conception of things, 
or of an external and superficial one ; we speak also of provinces of 
mind, and realms of thought : and use a multitude of other like 
phrases. 

Suppose then that we possessed a knowledge of the general 
principles, both voluntary and intellectual, of which the mind con- 
sists, and were desirous to present them more distinctly to our 
view, by describing them bv some of the ideas borrowed from the 

7* 



154 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

analogy, which we intuitively perceive to subsist, between the re- 
lations of mind and the relations of place : suppose, as mathemati- 
cians resort to diagrams to assist their conceptions of the relations 
of quantity, we even wished to assist our conceptions of the mind 
by some sensible delineation, and were to conceive the thought of 
mapping out the various provinces of intellect and affection which 
we perceive to exist in it : — how should we commence the execu- 
tion of the plan, but by laying down, in the centre of our scheme, 
a region, to be considered as representing that part of the mind 
which is the seat of the most exalted affections and sentiments, 
being those which have for their objects the topics of true religion, 
or those which embrace the love and vital knowledge of God? 
Should we not, around this central region, allot various districts, 
to represent those parts of the mind, whose functions consist of 
attachments to subordinate objects and of intellectual exercises of 
an inferior character ? And should we not place in the- circum- 
ference of our map of that " little world," or microcosm, the mind 
of man, those faculties, both affectuous and intellectual, which, 
though still belonging to the mind, have the closest affinity with 
the body, and partake the least of any thing of a purely spiritual 
nature, — being such as belong to the province of merely corporeal 
sensations, and of ideas of such things as either afford no room, or 
are too grossly apprehended to give occasion, for the exercise of 
the higher intellectual powers? Such, certainly, would be our 
mode of proceeding, were we to attempt to draw a map of the 
mind, by following out the analogy which every one perceives to 
exist between the relations of mind and the relations of place. 

Such a map, then, is ready drawn to our hands by the Spirit of 
God, — to whom alone the analogies between natural and spiritual 
things of all kinds are fully known, — in the geography of the 
Scriptures. In this map, the land of Israel is considered as the 
central region which is the seat of all the truly spiritual affections 
and perceptions of the human mind (: and hence was derived the 
notion of the Jews, that their country constituted the middle of 
the earth's surface ; — an opinion which was true in spiritual 
though not in physical geography : — and a similar transferring, by 
them, of ideas which are true in a spiritual sense, to a natural 
application in which they are false, has given rise to many of that 
people's absurd, superstitious opinions and practices, the origin of 



IV.] T1IE SCULPTURES ASSERTED. 155 

which would be otherwise unaccountable). So, following the law 
of Analogy, the countries situated around the land of Canaan, will 
represent the subordinate mental powers and faculties. We will 
illustrate this by one or two examples. 

The great neighbour of Israel — the type of the spiritual part of 
the mind, — on one side, was Egypt ; which represents what be- 
longs entirely to the natural man, but, specifically, the Science or 
Knowledge of the natural man, with the faculty for acquiring it : 
and the powerful state which bordered upon Israel on the other 
side, was Assyria; which represents the Rational Faculty, and 
the Eeasoning Powers, in general. Now as Science and Season- 
ing, when separated from all regard to religion, or to true religion, 
and placed in opposition to it, are two of its most dangerous 
enemies ; therefore we read so much of the troubles which these 
two nations brought upon the Israelites : but as, nevertheless, 
they are capable of being rendered extremely serviceable to true 
religion, and are themselves exalted by being submitted to its in- 
fluence ; therefore we meet with predictions of a state in which 
this union should be effected. Thus it is said in Isaiah, " In that 
day there shall be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of 
Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord* ;" words 
which plainly indicate the complete submission to a divine influ- 
ence, of the principle, power, or faculty, represented by Egypt, 
from its inmost essence — "the midst" — to its last extremity— 
"the border thereof." And that this shall be closely connected 
with the principle, power, or faculty, represented by Assyria, 
which shall be submitted, with it, to the divine government, is 
presently taught in these words : " In that day there shall be a 
highway out of Egypt to Assyria : and the Assyrian shall come 
into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria: and the Egyptians 
shall serve with the Assyrians."! And again, that both shall be 
united with the principle represented by Israel, is beautifully ex- 
pressed when it is immediately added, "-In that day shall Israel 
be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst 
of the land!:" where the third means that which completes and 
adds perfection, — the number three, so generally considered to in- 
volve a mystery, denoting that which is complete and perfect ; for 
which reason it is also said, that Israel shall be a blessing in the 
* Isaiah xix. 19. f Ver. 23. J Ver. 24. 



156 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

midst of tlie land; implying, that the principle represented by 
I-rael shall become a centre, — a sort of life-giving essence, — to the 
other two ; as is the case with the principle of true religion, when 
the mind is in its proper order throughout. This also is one of 
the predictions of Scripture, of which no outward fulfilment, at all 
adequate to the terms of it, can be pointed out ; for to refer it, as 
done by Bishop Newton and others, to the propagation of Judaism 
in Egypt and Assyria, in consequence of the dispersion and cap- 
tivities of the Jews in those countries, is merely to trifle with 
words so august and solemn. And if this prophecy has received 
no outward fulfilment heretofore, the altered state of the world 
certainly renders it impossible that it should receive such an ac- 
complishment hereafter. But we shall have a view which well 
harmonizes with the expressions, and rises out of them by a just 
analogy, if we understand them spiritually, as pointing to the 
•union, in a glorious state of the church, of the three great orders 
or degrees of the intellectual powers. In this view, Egypt is the 
lowest of these powers, — the Science of Knowledge of the natural 
man, — or such as chiefly arises from the exercise of the faculty 
which the metaphysicians call simple perception : — Assyria is a 
higher intellectual power, — that which reflects and reasons, — or 
the Intelligence which results from the exercise of the faculties of 
analysis and comparison : — whilst Israel is the supreme intellectual 
power of all, — the Wisdom which connects all with God, and con- 
templates, with interior discernment, spiritual and divine subjects, 
which it applies, causing the lower attainments also to be applied, 
to the glory of God and the benefit of mankind. A.nd if we con- 
sider these three orders of intellectual powers to have three distinct 
provinces of the mind appropriated to them as their seats, we shall 
see why they are represented by the three countries of Egypt, 
Assyria, and Israel , — such representation following accurately the 
Law of that Analogy, which, we have before seen, we all intui- 
tively recognise, between the relations of mind and the relations 
of place. 

To prove that such is the signification in the Scriptures of these 
three countries, would require a consideration of the numerous 
occasions on which they are mentioned : it would then appear with 
clearness from the significant attributes and actions ascribed to 
them respectively : But this would detain us too long, and is also 






IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 157 

not necessary for our present object, which is merely to shew, that 
certain faculties or provinces of the mind are meant by the countries 
mentioned in the Holy Word, without determining that which is 
specifically intended by each : and this, I trust, must be pretty 
evident, in regard to the countries of Egypt, Assyria, and Israel, 
whether the explanations which have been attempted be altogether 
accepted or not. But I think that not much doubt will remain, 
even here, with any inquirer, who will take the pains to make an 
extensive examination of the passages where they are mentioned. 
Let him understand by Egypt, when spoken of unfavourably, those 
fallacies and appearances, with which Science, when not cultivated 
from pure motives, opposes the doctrines of true religion; (but 
under the name of Science is here to be understood, not only the 
knowledge of natural things, but an acquaintance also with the 
literal sense of the Word of God, from which, when separated from 
all connexion with its spirit, confirmations, as is well known, may 
and have been drawn, in favour of the most erroneous religious 
sentiments, and in opposition to the most evident truths :) so, by 
Egypt, when not unfavourably mentioned, are to be understood the 
views of true Science, — natural truths in general, both those drawn 
from the appearances of nature and those from the literal sense of 
the Word : — Let our inquirer, also, understand by Assyria, when 
spoken of with censure, that intellectual principle which appears 
like intelligence, but is mere adroitness in reasoning, or dexterity 
in managing a debate, independently of the truth or falsehood of 
the premises assumed ; — or, when it is mentioned with approbation, 
that intelligence which results from the right exercise of the rational 
faculty : — And let him regard both the principle of Science and the 
Rational principle, as occupying distinct provinces of the mind, 
and consider these provinces to be what are specifically meant by 
the realms of Egypt and Assyria. Whoever does this, will find a 
coherent and beautiful spiritual sense arise, in every instance where 
those countries are mentioned ; provided he has some idea of the 
spiritual reference of the other natural images with which they are 
accompanied, which will always be found exactly to harmonize with 
this signification of the countries.* 

* I am not sufficiently acquainted with the science, as it is called, of Phre- 
nology, to form any decided opinion of the solidity of its pretensions ; Even 
should its general principles he true, I should apprehend that many mistakes 



158 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

(5.) I have dwelt at some length on this part of our subject, 
because, perhaps, nothing connected with the spiritual interpreta- 
tion of the Scriptures appears more questionable at first, than the 
assertion, that all the countries mentioned in the Word of God, 
designate certain faculties or principles in the human mind ; when 
yet, on the idea being examined, it must be seen, that the analogy 
which it supposes, — that between the relations of mind and the re- 
lations of place, — is one of those, of which we have the clearest 
intuitive perception, and from which we draw several phrases in 
common discourse. All the difficulties then that can afterwards 
arise, in determining what mental faculties are represented by the 
various countries spoken of in the Scriptures, will be owing to our 
imperfect knowledge of what the faculties of the mind really are, 
and what are their distinguishing characteristics, and relative dignity. 
But these difficulties can only attach to the countries intermediate 
in their situation between Judsea and the most remote realms 
that are mentioned : of these latter, the signification will be obvious. 

must for a long time be expected to accompany the attempts to follow them 
out into their various ramifications : But I cannot dismiss the subject before us 
without observing, that I was lately much struck, on looking into the trans- 
actions of the Phrenological Society of Edinburgh, with the extraordinary coin- 
cidence of their description of the organs which they consider to be seated in 
the fore part of the brain, with the idea which I had formed of the signification, 
in Scripture, of the countries of Egypt, Assyria, and Israel. Their acoount of 
the functions of the organ which they denominate " Individuality," and of their 
" Knowing Faculties " in general, is exactly that which appears to belong to 
the " land of Egypt," considered as the symbol of a certain province of the 
mind: their organs of " Comparison " and "Causality," or their " Reflecting 
Faculties " in general, answer, with equal accuracy, to the Scriptural " land of 
Assyria;" and their "Veneration" and " Benevolence" as certainly belong to 
the " land of Israel." I am therefore thorougbly convinced, that, in their ac- 
counts of these " organs," they exhibit a correct conception of certain decided 
faculties or provinces of the mind, whether the parts of the brain in which they 
suppose these to be located during their connexion with the body, be accurately 
determined, or capable of being determined, or not. Should, then, future ob- 
servations confirm their discoveries in the main, only correcting what may at 
present be erroneous ; instead of apprehending from the establishment of their 
science consequences injurious to the belief of the Scriptures, we may hope to 
find in it additional means of confirming their plenary inspiration. Assuredly, 
a strong confirmation of this is afforded, when the same truths are brought to 
light by Science, as had long before been assumed by Revelation, as the basis 
of its instruction* 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 159 

These, then, we have already seen, are those which are called, in 
the prophecy of Ezekiel before us, and in the corresponding predic- 
tion of the Revelation, the land of Gog and Magog, — a region 
situated in "the corners of the earth," in " the sides of the north :" 
— which are emphatic descriptions of extreme remoteness. Apply 
this description to the mind ; and what province of it can be in- 
tended, but that which is the most external, and which borders most 
closely upon the corporeal sensations, — that, whose feelings are the 
most gross, and whose perceptions the most obscure ? — "When we 
say obscure, we mean, compared with those which partake of the 
light of true wisdom : To itself they may appear very lucid : as, 
doubtless, appears the obscurity of night to the owl, whose organs 
of vision cannot bear the brightness of day. 

Now suppose the degree of intellect hence resulting to exercise 
itself upon the subject of religion, and, with a general acknowledg- 
ment of its reality, to undertake the definition of its nature : "What 
sort of a theological system would be the result ? Would it not, 
while it accepted the most general truths of religion, understand 
them in the most superficial manner, and, while it adhered to the 
form, neglect the substance, — while it was occupied about the body, 
disregard the soul ? We will take two or three examples. 

It is a most general truth of religion, that God is to be wor- 
shiped : would not Gog, (allow, if you please, this term to stand 
as an expression, like an algebraic sign, of the principle which we 
have defined ; and let us designate by this name the man whose 
leading character is formed by that principle: — would not Gog) 
reduce his worship to mere external observances, regardless of the 
inward feelings which alone render external worship acceptable 
to the Divine Nature? It is, again, a still more general truth 
of religion, that there is a God : would not Gog regard his Deity 
as a being of like passions with himself; good humoured when 
pleased, revengeful when offended ; a compound of good and bad 
passions, and capricious in the indulgence of them both ? If Gog 
were a Jew, and expected the coming of a Messiah, as the Redeemer 
of Israel ; would he not look for a mighty conqueror, who should 
deliver the nation from a foreign yoke, and restore in greater splen- 
dour than ever the kingdom of David; without admitting the 
thought of a spiritual redemption by him, or being willing to 
believe that his kingdom is not of this world ? If Gog were a 



160 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

Christian, and believed that the Messiah had come to institute a 
new religion ; would he not be disposed to entertain the idea, that 
the Saviour is nothing more than a man, not differing from other 
men in nature, though appointed to a high office by God ? Whether 
Jew or Christian, would he not, at the idea of a miraculous con- 
ception, exclaim, with Mary, before she was fully instructed by the 
angel, " How shall this be ?"* — without crediting the statement of 
the fact, as she did, and so acquiring an interest in the divinely 
inspired declaration, " Blessed is she that believed ?"f And would 
he not, with the Jews, on hearing the assertion from the lips of 
Jesus, "I and my Father are One$," "take up stones to stone 
him § ;" as far, at least, as that can be done by hard, contradicting 
speeches, — by contending that such words are not to be under- 
stood in a strict and proper sense, or in any sense which will not 
include in the affirmation all good men ? To put a final case : If 
Gog were a believer in the Scriptures generally, and lived in a 
philosophic age ; would he not reduce the scale of their inspiration 
to as low a standard as is consistent with any belief that they 
contain, in any manner, a revelation from God ? Would lie not 
regard them, chiefly, as merely human compositions, and confine 
the subjects of them, as far as possible, to natural occurrences ? 
from which, also, he would gladly exclude any divine interposition, 
resolving even the miracles, wherever he could find a pretence, into 
the operation of natural causes. Thus, would he not adhere, 
mainly, to " the letter which killeth," and shut out altogether " the 
spirit which giveth life?" In short, in every thing connected with 
religious faith and worship, would not Gog choose that which is 
low and grovelling, external and superficial, and reject that which 
is elevated and soaring, internal and profuimd ? Would he not 
"fill his belly with the husks that the swine do eat||," and, with 
the swine, " trample the pearls under his feet?"*J Nor would any 
part of this character be incompatible with great attainments in 
erudition : since it is well known that the finer powers of the mind 
are not unfrequently buried under the dust of learning ; and that 
there is, in the efforts of literature, the bathos as well as the 
sublime. The poet did not go out of nature when he described his 
king of the dunces as 

* Luke i. 34. f Yer. 45. J John x. 30. § Ver. 31. 

|| Luke xv. 16. % Matt. vii. 6. 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 161 

"Sinking from thought to thought: a vast profound !" 
Sucli then being the character of mind represented by Gog and 
Magog, and such the influence which its preponderance would 
have upon religion, how easy is it to see that the predictions by 
Ezekiel and the Eevelator, of invasions by them of the land of 
Israel, must refer to the efforts of such a principle, and of those 
who are in it, to degrade religion, in faith and worship, into a con- 
formity with the above ideas ! Yea, is it not also intimated, from 
the partial and temporary success spoken of as attending the enter- 
prise of the invaders, that, for a time, such ideas of religion would 
be extremely prevalent, and would be urged with a confidence by 
which many would be seduced ? This is clearly the spiritual sense 
of the predictions : in this sense, then, have they ever been ac- 
complished ? 

Most evidently, the prophecy of Ezekiel was accomplished 
among the Jews about the time of the Lord's appearance in the 
flesh. In the doctrine and practice of the Pharisees, we behold 
that complete separation of every thing that is external in religion 
from all that is internal, and that destruction of the latter by the 
former, of which Gog, when he appears in the character of an in- 
vader of Israel, is the appropriate type. The church among the 
Jews, was, indeed, always of an external character, consisting 
chiefly in outward rites of which the true import was not discerned : 
yet, doubtless, while that church remained unperverted, the in- 
ternal things of which their rituals were types, were obscurely felt 
among them, though not clearly perceived : though unknown, they 
were not denied: but when elaborate systems of doctrines and 
precepts were invented, as was done by the Pharisees, the object 
of which was to persuade the people that they became holy by an 
attention to external observances alone, then was the internal 
essence of religion entirely destroyed by its outward appearances, 
and Gog indeed " came up against Israel, as a cloud, to cover the 
land."* Accordingly, we find, that the reproofs which the Lord 
Jesus Christ addressed to the Jews, chiefly ran upon this separation 
of the forms of religion from its vital principles, and upon the 
suffocation by the former of the latter. " He answered and said 
unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you, hypocrites ; as it 
is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their 
* Ezek. xxviii 16. 



1G2 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

heart is far from me. — Full well ye reject the commandment of 
God, that ye may keep your own tradition : for Moses said, 
Honour thy father and thy mother j — but ye say, If a man shall 
say to his father or his mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift 
[consecrated to God] by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by 
me ; he shall be free ; and ye suffer him no more to do ought for 
his father or his mother ; making the Word of God of none effect 
through your tradition which ye have delivered : and many such 
like things ye do."* So the awful denunciations against the 
scribes and Pharisees in the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, all 
turn upon the same point, — the destruction of the internal essence 
of religion by substituting its externals in its place : " Woe unto 
you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye devour widows' 
houses, and for a pretence make long prayers :" " Woe unto you, 
ye blind guides, which say, whosoever shall swear by the temple, 
it is nothing ; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, 
he is a debtor;" "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! 
for ye pay tythes of mint, and anise, and cummin, and have omitted 
the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith:" 
" Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye make 
clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are 
full of extortion and excess."f So, all the other marks of the cha- 
racter which we have above defined as that of Gog, as connected 
with religion, were exemplified in these perverters of religion. Nor 
did their notion that the Scriptures were replete with mysteries, 
at all contradict the gross ideas of the Word of God which they 
who are represented by Gog would entertain. They took this 
general belief from those who had a traditionary knowledge of the 
fact : but the mysteries they pretended to find in the law, were 
of any but a spiritual nature: they consisted of the most idle 
puerilities, all calculated to flatter their own pride ; such as, instead 
of fulfilling the late, in the sense which, in our second Lecture, we 
shewed to belong to that phrase, — that is, filling it with heavenly 
ideas relating to the love of God and man, — emptied it of every 
thing of such a character, and made even the most express injunc- 
tions of its letter compatible with habits the most selfish and 
profane. 

If then Gog, or Gog and Magog, represent a character and stafp 
* Mark vii. 6 to 13. f Ver 14, 16, 23, 25. 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 1G3 

of mind of the most gross and external description ; if the invasion 
by them of the land of Israel typifies the introduction of persua- 
sions originating in such a state of mind into every thing connected 
with religion, till the church is entirely overrun, and all its doc- 
trines, with all its worship, acquire an external character, entirely 
separated from, and in opposition to, the internal qualities without 
which they are nothing ; and if the Lord Jesus Christ declares that 
such was the state of the church among the Jews when he was on 
earth : — then had the prophecy of Ezekiel upon the subject at that 
time received its fulfilment. But the instruction which it conveys 
is not thereby rendered obsolete, as would be the case if it related 
to merely natural events, and had been fufilled by an invasion of hostile 
armies : but it will for ever continue to teach mankind, what is the 
proper character of the gross conceptions of the natural man, when 
not rectified by the influence of the spiritual ; and what are the 
deplorable consequences, when man yields to the suggestions of 
the most external part of his mental constitution alone, and 
draws thence his conclusions on the subject of religion. Of 
this, in the case of individuals, there is danger at all times. We 
all must be sensible, that there is in our constitution the principle 
of which Gog and -Magog are the symbols, — a principle by which 
we first become conscious of impressions that come from without, 
and which, if not submitted to the controul of an enlightened intel- 
lectual faculty, might even lead to the persuasion that nothing is 
real but sense and nature ; it would therefore be well if we would 
profit by the warning which this prophecy affords, and take care 
how we suffer such a principle to lift itself out of its place. There 
is in it a tendency to usurpation. Sense is ever disposed to exalt 
herself above Eeason, and falsely to arrogate her name : and then 
Eeligion is either banished altogether, or compelled to assume a 
disguise that hides her beauty, and destroys her benefits. In the 
last extreme, atheism is the result. 

But if the prophecy by Ezekiel of the invasion of Gog and Magog 
received its general fulfilment in the state of the Jewish Church 
at the time of the Lord's appealing in the world, we see that the 
parallel prediction of John must refer to a different event in the 
spiritual history of mankind, and cannot, as Bishop Lowth supposes, 
mean exactly the same : which supposition degrades, besides, the 
Divine Word, with the imputation of repetition and tautology. 



164 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [lECT. 

The general signification of Gog and Magog, and of their invasion 
of the land of the saints, must be, indeed, the same as before ; bnt 
two distinct irruptions of the principle are certainly intended : if 
then the first of them took place in the last perversion of the 
Israelitish dispensation, when are we to look for the second ? Are 
corruptions of this deplorable kind, ever to overtake the profession 
of Christianity? Alarming as is the thought, it seems impossible to 
doubt that this is pointed-to in the prediction of the Kevelation. 
If we admit the communication to proceed from the Divine Pre- 
science, we must expect such an event. Again will men look at 
religion under the influence of the most external province of the 
mind : again will they separate the conclusions which this suggests, 
from the more enlightened sentiments which would be dictated by 
the internal man : and the consequence again will be, that, while 
some will glory in the avowal of the most audacious infidelity, ex- 
tended even to the self- worship of atheism, a greater number, not 
venturing to deny religion altogether, will lower down its duties 
and its doctrines to an agreement with the suggestions of the 
lowest part of their nature ; that, deeming the vividness with which 
they conceive their sentiments to be a certain mark of their truth, 
(though it is only a consequence of the proximity of the province 
of the mind in which such persons think, to the senses of the body,) 
and shutting out the admission of any light from above, even till 
they doubt the reality of every thing of a spiritual nature, they will 
rush eagerly to battle against those who affirm that reality, strong 
in the conceit that their arguments are invincible. But when will 
this deplorable visitation take place ? Have any symptoms of its 
commencement yet appeared ? These are questions of deep concern- 
ment to every Christian ; but to attempt their solution would carry 
us too far. The consideration of them must be left to those who 
feel sufficiently interested in the subject to pursue it farther: 
and the way to decide them will be, to reflect maturely on the 
nature of the principle of which Gog and Magog are types, and of 
its natural influence, when made the arbiter of religious sentiment ; 
and then to examine what marks of this influence are discernible in 
the opinions and controversies which make a noise in the Chris- 
tian world, and which divide the minds of men on the subject of 
religion. 

(6.) We have pursued to some extent the ideas suggested by 



IV. THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 165 

the prophecies respecting Gog and Magog, because, as observed 
above respecting all such prophecies as do not admit of an out- 
ward accomplishment, they are so well adapted to lead to a just 
conception of the nature of the Prophetic "Word in general ; and 
because these predictions, in particular, eminently tend to illus- 
trate that great portion of the Prophetic Word, which seems to 
treat, in its letter, of particular countries and nations. If some of 
the predictions of this kind are such as never could have been in- 
tended to receive a literal fulfilment ; it is evident that they must 
contain a spiritual sense, and that, when they were given, a spiri- 
tual fulfilment was the only one contemplated by their Divine 
Author : and if the Scriptures are written upon a uniform orderly 
plan, — as they must be, if they are inspired, by a God of order,— 
then must a spiritual fulfilment of divine prophecy have been that 
which was chiefly intended, in every part of it; although some 
parts of it were such as admitted, and received, a general outward, 
accomplishment likewise. If there are any parts of it, which, 
though they all contain a double sense, were not designed to have 
a double fulfilment ; — in which sense, be it asked, is their fulfil- 
ment naturally to be looked for, — in that which is primary, or in 
that which is secondary? If the spiritual accomplishment, "though 
not ike first, [as to time], was the principal, thing in the prophet's 
view ;" and yet the prediction was of such a nature, that, whatever 
the prophet might have understood by it, it only admitted of a fulfil- 
ment in one sense ; — which must have been the fulfilment regarded 
by the Inspirer of the prophet ? The question admits of but one 
answer. And it is equally evident, that if the prophecies have a 
spiritual sense any where, and this is the principal sense, they 
must have it every where. But the literal sense being thus a mere 
vehicle for the conveyance of the spiritual, may either be outwardly 
fulfilled or not, as the plans of Providence may render expedient. 
To communicate the spiritual sense, the literal sense is indispen- 
sable : but to the spiritual fulfilment, the literal fulfilment is en- 
tirely unnecessary. When, also, an outward accomplishment of 
prophecy, affecting the affairs of nations, takes place, it is never, 
as was noticed above, so exact, as not to leave room for much 
variety of opinion regarding the application of many particulars 
of the prediction ; thus pointing to a spiritual fulfilment, as that to 
which alone the terms of the prophecy can be unobjectionably applied. 



166 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

But these prophecies respecting Gog and Magog, are eminently 
calculated to illustrate the nature of that great portion of the Pro- 
phetic Word, which seems to treat, in its letter, of particular coun- 
tries and nations. Gog and Magog, according to the literal idea, 
evidently denote very remote countries and nations : the prophecies 
relating to them are such as never have been outwardly accom- 
plished, and never can be : and if so, then a spiritual fulfilment 
must alone have been intended. But how are we to discover the 
nature of this spiritual fulfilment ? All ideas respecting it must 
be merely conjectural and arbitrary, unless we have a certain Rule 
to guide our conclusions : and what principle in the nature of 
things can be discovered, capable of affording such a Eule, but the 
Analogy immutably established between natural things and spiri- 
tual, whereby they mutually answer to each other ? An obvious 
analogy, we have seen, exists, between the relations of Mind and 
the relations of Place : each has its provinces : and it is not at all 
difficult to conceive, how the one may be represented by the other. 
We have seen also, that whatever may be the difficulty of deter- 
mining what provinces or characters of mind are implied by some 
of the countries and nations mentioned in the Scriptures, this does 
not extend to the signification of Gog and Magog. These, as the 
countries and nations most remote from the land of Israel, must 
denote the most external province and character that can belong 
to the human mind. This, then, may be assumed as certain. 
But if it is evident that a certain province or character of mind is 
meant by Gog and Magog, it cannot be doubted, that some certain 
province or character of mind is equally symbolized by every other 
country and nation mentioned in the sacred pages. If we admit 
the premises, the conclusion is unavoidable ; unless we would treat 
the Word of God as a chaos of confusion, — a mass of isolated 
discordances, in which no conclusion can be drawn from one fact 
to another, let the parallelism between them be ever so complete. 

(7.) Now if it be true that the invasion of Israel by Gog, is a 
prophetic description of the state of rebgion among the Jews at 
the time of the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ, it will not 
seem strange to infer, that the extraordinary passage quoted at the 
beginning of this section, in which the fowls of the air and the 
beasts of the field are invited to a great feast or sacrifice prepared 
for them by the Lord, refers to the abundant mercies consequent 



IV.] THE SCKIPTURES ASSERTED. 167 

upon the Lord's coming in the flesh, and dispensed to all who 
were willing to accept them ; and which were calculated to 
nourish, and restore to its right order, every faculty and power 
of the human mind. By his coming, the Lord put an end to the 
Israelitish dispensation, which at best was of a very external 
character, only "having a shadow of good things to come*;" and, 
in its stead, " brought life and immortality to light through the 
gospel f :" "for the law was given by Moses; but grace and truth 
came by Jesus Christ." % The spiritual graces which he came to 
dispense, are frequently compared by him to food and drink, on 
account of the analogy noticed in our last Lecture between natural 
food and spiritual. When the prodigal returned repentant, his 
father killed for him the fatted calf. § And when the Lord pro- 
poses the parable of " a certain man who made a great supper || ;" 
or of a dinner given by a certain king on account of the marriage 
of his son, and who says on the occasion, "My oxen and my fat- 
lings are killed^";" he evidently describes the heavenly gifts wdrich 
were offered to man, for the nourishment of his soul, in conse- 
quence of his coming into the world. (It is needless to say, that 
the guests who were invited, and w r ho refused to come, were the 
Jews, who possessed the invitations of the Lord in his Word ; and 
that they who were brought in from the highways and hedges, 
without previous invitation, were the Gentiles, to whom the true 
God was previously unknown.) If then the Lord Jesus Christ 
himself, thus describes the blessings presented to man by his 
gospel under the appropriate emblem of a feast; how natural is 
the conclusion, that the same blessings are indicated by Ezekiel, 
in the stronger figures belonging to the prophetic style, when, in 
the conclusion of his prophecy respecting Gog, which refers to the 
state of the Jewish church at the time of the Lord's advent, he 
speaks of a great feast prepared for the fowls of the air and the 
beasts of the field ! Let us then briefly notice, how the particulars 
of this general explanation may be developed by the Science of 
Analogies. 

We have seen in our last Lecture, that the human mind is com- 
posed, in general, of two great faculties, called the will and the 
understanding ; and that the will is the seat of every thing be- 

* Heb. x. 1. t 2 Tim. i. 10. % John i. 17. 

§ Luke xv. 23. || Ch. xiv. 16. % Matt. xxii. 4. 



168 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

longing to love or affection, and the understanding of every thing 
belonging to perception and thought : so that the will may in fact 
be considered as a congeries of innumerable affections, and the 
understanding as a congeries of innumerable thoughts. Now the 
Holy Scriptures, being dictated by Him " who knoweth our 
frame*," continually regard man as composed of these two general 
principles, and address him in reference to them both. Thus 
nothing is more common in Scripture than to speak of " the fowls 
of the air and the beasts of the field ;" the reason is, because there 
is an analogy between the winged part of the animal creation, and 
the intellectual powers of the mind; and between the part of the 
animal creation constituted by the mammalia, and the affectuous 
powers of the mind. That beasts in general are apt symbols of 
the affections, is very evident, and was in some measure shewn in 
our last Lecture : and birds in general, not less aptly, are types of 
the thoughts ; as will appear to him who contemplates their pecu- 
liar properties ; such as their capacity of soaring in the air, and 
the remarkable manner in which they are affected by the light, 
being rendered lively by its presence, dull by its partial absence, 
and going to sleep on the approach of darkness, even when the 
darkness comes on at an unusual time, — as when it has been 
caused by an eclipse not long after sunrise. When therefore the 
Lord says to the prophet, in the passage we are considering, 
" Speak unto every feathered fowl, [or, to the fowl of every wing,] 
and to every beast of the field j" — it is not the fowls and beasts 
who are addressed, (for who could suppose that Jehovah would 
literally address these? less absurd woidd be the story of St. 
Anthony's sermon to the fishes :) but it is man in general who is 
appealed to, considered as to the general faculties of his mental 
constitution, — as to all the powers of his mind which are capable 
of being benefited by divine gifts. As, also, there is an immense 
variety in the human race, every man being distinguished from 
others, not less by his peculiar mode of thinking and feeling than 
by the peculiar lineaments of his countenance ; and as, in some, 
the understanding is more active than the affections, and, in others, 
the affections are more active than the intellect : therefore those 
whose peculiar character belongs to the former description, under 
any possible modification of it, are addressed as the birds of every 
* Ps. ciil 14. 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 169 

wing, and those whose character belongs to the latter description, 
with the same variety, are included in the address to every beast of 
the field. 

Now as the human mind in the aggregate consists of two 
general faculties, which are the will and the understanding ; so are 
there two general divine gifts by which these are to be nourished ; 
which are, goodness and truth. These then are what are meant, 
when, on the birds and beasts being commanded to assemble them- 
selves together to a great sacrifice which should be sacrificed for 
them by the Lord, it is said, " that ye may eat flesh and drink 
blood"; there being, as noticed in our last Lecture, an exact ana- 
logy between flesh and blood, as the chief constituents of animal 
bodies, and goodness and truth, or love and wisdom, these being, 
in their origin, the prime essentials of the Divine Nature. But as 
the mind of man, both as to will and intellect, consists of faculties 
of various orders and degrees ; so also are there various orders and 
degrees of the goodness and truth imparted for their nourishment ; 
and nothing can be conceived, which becomes an object of feeling 
and perception, which does not refer, in some way, to the general 
principle of goodness, or to the general principle of truth. The 
various orders and degrees, then, of goodness and truth, which 
would be bestowed in abundance, under the dispensation of the 
gospel, for the spiritual nourishment of man, and for his edification 
in all heavenly graces, are represented by the various kinds of 
beings whose flesh and blood should be presented for food, as re- 
lated in the following verses. " Ye shall eat the flesh of the 
mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, 
of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan." 
The mighty, here, are they who prevail in spiritual combats, which 
are such as are carried on internally against the corruptions of the 
heart and mind ; or, more abstractedly, they are those principles 
of heavenly confidence which give power in those combats ; and to 
eat the flesh of the mighty, is to enjoy the good which is procured 
by victory in such conflicts. The princes of the earth are the 
leading and primary truths of the church, on which the subordinate 
ones depend ; and to drink their blood is to have these fixed in the 
mind. Earns and lambs are emblems of such good affections as 
belong to the internal man, relating, chiefly, to love to God and 
our neighbour; and goats and bullocks are corresponding prin- 

8 



170 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

ciples in the external man : the bullocks are said to be fatlings of 
Bashan, to express the excellence of the animals, and, by analogy, 
of the principle which they represent. To imply the profusion 
with which these blessings should be imparted, it is added, " And 
ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, 
of my sacrifice, which I have sacrificed for you:" fat is here 
mentioned instead of flesh, as being a symbol of goodness still 
more genuine and excellent. The conclusion of the promise is the 
most extraordinary part of all : " Thus ye shall be filled at my 
table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with aD men 
of war, saith the Lord God." If there be any, who are so dis- 
posed to adhere to the literal sense of the prophecy, as to conclude 
that " Gog and all his multitude" really mean an immense invading 
army, and to infer that the convocation of the fowls and beasts to 
" eat flesh and drink blood," is a figurative mode of describing the 
excess of the slaughter, by adverting to the numbers of birds and 
beasts which would be drawn together by the scent of the carcases; 
and who can bring themselves to think it not unworthy of " the 
Lord Jehovah " to make such an address to mere animals of prey ; 
these words must destroy the illusion : for though some animals of 
prey would eagerly devour dead horses,, they would not devour the 
chariots which they drew ; and yet, according to the terms of the 
prediction, the chariots, also, are to form part of the feast. Thus 
it is, that, throughout the Scriptures, expressions are frequently 
thrown in, which cannot at all be applied to the subjects which 
appear to be treated of in the letter ; as if Divine Wisdom intro- 
duced them on purpose to prevent the attention from resting in 
the letter, and to awaken it to the spirit which dwells within. 
All the expressions used in Scripture relating to ways and to 
journeys, and to the methods by which man assists his progress in 
his journeys, refer to the exercise of the thoughts. In meditation, 
every one is conscious of something passing in his mind, analogous 
to locomotion. On account of the use of the horse in assisting 
man in his progress from place to place, he was regarded in 
ancient times, as noticed in our last Lecture, as a symbol of man's 
understanding, or apprehension, of truths or of what he regards as 
truth ; and to ride on horseback, in the symbolic style of writing, 
was understood to mean, to acquire intelligence, or to commu- 
nicate instruction, by the exercise of the faculty. Nearly related 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 171 

in signification to the horse, on which a man rides, must be a 
chariot, drawn by horses, in which he rides: thus, as the one 
expresses, in the language of analogy, the understanding or appre- 
hension of truth, so does the other the doctrine of truth, or those 
sentiments respecting truth which the mind assumes as certain, 
and employs to assist its further progress. Now as birds and 
beasts may feed on horses, so is the human mind nurtured in spiri- 
tual graces by the right understanding of truth : and though no 
bird or beast can feed on chariots, yet may the human mind be fed 
with the doctrine of truth : and this is what is meant when the 
Lord says by the prophet, " Ye shall be filled at my table with 
horses and chariots." " Mighty men, and all men of war," are 
added, to express such firm convictions of the truth, grounded in 
love, in regard to divine subjects, as give a man power over the 
corruptions of his own heart and mind, as well as over all sugges- 
tions in favour of evil and error that may come from without, and 
which enable him, in every trial, to come off a conqueror. 

Now, though it would require a very extensive discussion, fully 
to prove that the several particulars of this remarkable prophecy 
bear the exact signification which we have offered ; yet that they 
must bear some such signification, is, I think, abundantly evident. 
The spiritual analogy of some of the principal symbols, is obvious : 
that of the others will also appear on reflection : and if the ground, 
in analogy, of the signification assigned to any of the natural 
images, should not be discerned by every one, yet every one who 
will carefully examine the other passages in the Word of God 
where they are mentioned, may ascertain that they always bear 
some such meaning. It would require a work on a different plan 
from that of these Lectures, fully to demonstrate, by the Science of 
Analogies, and by the manner in which natural images are used in 
the Scriptures, the meaning of each specific symbol : all that we 
undertake to prove, is, that the general principle exists ; that there 
is in reality a definite analogy between natural things and spiritual, 
whereby the former answer to, and form expressive symbols of, the 
latter ; and that this analogy is observed in the Holy Word. In 
applying the general rule to particular cases, we shall be satisfied 
if our interpretations are accepted as probable. In the more im- 
portant and more general analogies, we hope that this probability 
will be found very strong : in subordinate and respectively unim- 



172 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

portant particulars, a lower degree of probability will be sufficient 
for our purpose. A multitude of probabilities is admitted to con- 
stitute a moral certainty : and if it shall appear, in numerous 
instances, that the spiritual signification which we assign to various 
natural symbols is probably the true one, every impartial mind 
will allow it to be morally certain, that some spiritual signification 
does belong to those symbols. Thus the general principle will be 
established, whether our explanations of particulars be all concurred 
in, or not. 

In the passage at present before us, it is impossible to conceive 
of Jehovah himself as calling the birds and beasts to a sacrifice 
prepared for them by him, that they might eat flesh and drink 
blood, without revoltin fc£ from the ideas suggested by the letter* 
and concluding instinctively, that matters very different, and more 
worthy of Infinite Love and Wisdom, and of the active interfer- 
ence of Deity, must be veiled beneath the expressions. To regard 
them as merely forming an emphatic mode of describing a great 
slaughter by one of its consequences, is still to impute unworthy 
sentiments to the Divine Being. If the prophets are to be consi- 
dered merely as poets, and it should be deemed allowable for the 
poet Ezekiel thus to exidt over the destruction of the enemies of 
his country ; it would be in the highest degree profane for him to 
introduce on the occasion the most sacred of the names of God, 
and to deliver his invitation to birds and beasts to feed on his 
slaughtered foes, in the name of " the Lord Jehovah." But if, as 
has already been shewn, no invasion by natural enemies can have 
been intended by any part of the prophecy, then no devouring of 
their carcases can be referred to by the invitation to the birds and 
beasts. Besides, the total destruction of " Gog and all his multi- 
tude" is more explicitly detailed in the former part of the chapter : 
they are not only described as being all dead, but, likewise, as 
being all buried* : after which to invite the birds and beasts to 
eat their flesh and drink their blood, would look like an after- 
thought indeed, not easily compatible with the previous state- 
ments. Every thing then leads us to regard this part of the pro- 
phecy, as well as the rest, as a prophetic allegory, designed to have 
a purely spiritual accomplishment, and no other. 

But perhaps it may be objected, " Admitting something of a 
* Ver. 11 to 15. 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 173 

spiritual nature to be intended by this invitation to the fowls of 
every wing and to every beast of the field, still it does not appear 
how their eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Gog and his 
army, who evidently are the enemies of the church, or injurious 
principles in regard to religion, can represent the imparting to men 
of heavenly gifts and graces." But it is to be observed, that the 
idea of Gog and his army is dismissed with their burial, already 
recorded, and they are not mentioned any more. According to the 
literal sense, indeed, it must be inferred to be their flesh and blood 
that the fowls and beasts are to eat and drink ; but this is not 
affirmed. The feast is merely represented as consequent upon the 
destruction of Gog: and thus it suggests the important truth, 
explicitly affirmed in many parts of Scripture, that all increase of 
good is in consequence of, and in proportion to, the removal of 
evil. Both cannot exist together, either in the church at large or 
in the mind of man : the one must be put away, to make room for 
the other to enter. The removal then of the evils that destroyed 
and perverted all true religion, is described by the destruction of 
Gog and his multitude : the reception of the good which can then 
be imparted, is meant by the feast given in consequence to the 
fowls and beasts. That the flesh and blood which they should eat 
and drink are not considered as belonging to Gog and his army, 
or to any thing that has a bad signification, is evident from their 
being called the flesh and blood " of rams, of lambs, of goats, and 
of bullocks." Goats and bullocks, indeed, as denoting principles 
which belong to the external man, which may either be in right 
order or the contrary, are sometimes mentioned in a bad sense, as 
well as in a good one : but rams and lambs, as denoting principles 
which belong to the internal man, — the apostle's inward man which 
delights in the law of God*, — are not subject to this ambiguity of 
interpretation : they are invariably used as symbols of the purest 
affections that can adorn the human mind. 

Altogether, then, whether the explanation which has been offered 
be seen, in all the particulars, to be true or not ; I trust that the 
general meaning assigned to the whole will be admitted to be highly 
probable : — that the flesh and blood of the various orders of beings 
mentioned, as forming a sacrifice or feast prepared by Jehovah for 
the birds of every wing and every beast of the field, are the good- 
* Rom. vii. 22. 



174 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

ness and truth of various orders and degrees, offered by the Lord 
to all who had any capacities for receiving them, when, at his 
coming into the world, he put an end to the perversion of religion 
then prevalent among the Jews, in consequence of their looking at 
divine things under the influence of the most external part of their 
nature: or, more briefly. That this prophetic feast denotes the 
profusion of heavenly gifts, resulting from the introduction of the 
spiritual and pure dispensation of the Gospel, in lieu of the carnal 
and corrupted dispensation of the Law. 

2. The next prophecy that we select for consideration, is that of 
the Lord Jesus Christ, comprised in the twenty-fourth and twenty- 
fifth chapters of Matthew ; more particularly that part of it which 
is contained in these words: "Immediately after the tribulation 
of those days, shall the sun be darkened and the moon shall not 
give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers 
of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of 
the Son of man in heaven : and then shall all the tribes of the 
earth mourn ; and they shall see the Son of man coming in the 
clouds of heaven with power and great glory."* 

(1.) As the passage which we have considered from Ezekiel 
affords a remarkable instance of that species of divine prediction 
which admits of no outward fulfilment; so does this whole dis- 
course of the Lord Jesus Christ supply a remarkable instance of 
that species of prophecy which does admit of such a fulfilment, it 
being, in fact, of all the predictions of Holy Writ, the most distin- 
guished for the great exactness with which many of its announce- 
ments have been palpably accomplished. It has been justly ob- 
served, of that part of it which extends from the beginning to the 
twenty-eighth verse of the twenty-fourth chapter, that many of the 
particulars which it states, so precisely describe the calamities which 
befel the Jewish nation at and prior to the siege of Jerusalem by 
Titus, that it more resembles a history than a prophecy : and as, 
nevertheless, it is certain that the prediction was delivered, and the 
account of it published, before those calamities occurred, an irresis- 
tible argument thence arises for the divine inspiration of prophecy, 
and for the truth of the Christian religion, which has been ably 
handled by many of the Christian apologists. 
* Ch. sxiv. 29, 30. 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 175 

Nevertheless, clearly as some parts of this prophecy have coin- 
cided with historical events, it is impossible to adapt it to all cir- 
cumstances of that kind. A great part of it certainly admits of 
none but a spiritual fulfilment : hence, as the whole of it flows in 
an uninterrupted and most closely connected series, it seems un- 
deniable that a spiritual fulfilment is that which is chiefly designed 
throughout, and that, in the words of Bishop Lowth so often cited, 
the destruction of Jerusalem, though " the first, was not the princi- 
pal thing in the [Divine] Prophet's view." Still it is certain, that 
part of the prophecy had an external accomplishment in the events 
attending the destruction of Jerusalem : we here then have a striking 
exemplification of the principle advanced above, — " that the spiri- 
tual things described in the ulterior sense of the prophetic lan- 
guage, were typically pictured by such external events ; — that a 
spiritual fulfilment was at the same time primarily regarded, and 
that of this was given, in the corresponding historical circumstances, 
a symbolic scenical representation."* On no other principle can 
those particulars of the prophecy which may be applied to the 
destruction of Jerusalem, be taken as part of the same series as the 
other particulars, which do not admit of such an application. And 
the argument for the divine inspiration of prophecy, and for the 
truth of the Christian religion, arising from the outward fulfilment, 
is hereby carried farther ; since, while we obtain a solution, by the 
Science of Analogies, of those parts of the prophecy which are in- 
explicable on the principle of literal interpretation, we obtain, at 
the same time, for the passages in which a literal interpretation is 
admissible, a meaning more worthy of a Divine Author, than could 
be afforded by the most exact description of the future fates of 
nations ; — a meaning which, while it rests upon the letter as its 
basis, rises and points towards heaven. Let us see how this will 
appear from a general view of the whole prophecy ; exhibiting, first, 
the inconsistencies of the common interpretations. 

(2.) It is related, in the first verse, that " Jesus went out, and 
departed from the temple : and his disciples came to him to shew 
him the buildings of the temple ;" and it is added, in the second 
verse, that " Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things ? 
verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon 
another which shall not be thrown down." First, then, let it be 

* P. 257. 



176 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

admitted, that these words apply, in their immediate reference, to 
the temple at Jerusalem and its destruction, which, as is known 
from the history of Josephus, was as total as is here implied. Let, 
also, the detailed prediction that follows, through the whole of this 
and the next chapters, be understood of the events connected with 
the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, as far as they can 
possibly be adapted to those occurrences. It is allowed, however, 
on all hands, that the whole cannot be so adapted : let then the 
place be pointed out where the new subject commences. But let 
this be done in such a manner, as to be consistent with the fact, 
that a space of not much less than two thousand years at the least, 
was to intervene, between the accomplishment of the latter part 
of the prophecy and that of the former : for the first part of it is 
considered to have been fully accomplished about A. D. 70; and 
the remainder not to be accomplished yet : it is also to be recol- 
lected, that no events belonging to this intervening period are 
supposed to be treated of in the prophecy, but that, in whatever 
place the transition is made, it skips at once from the destruction 
of Jerusalem to the end of the world. Of course, with these pre- 
mises assumed, every reader will expect to perceive some well 
defined mark of so great an hiatus. How will this expectation be 
answered ? So far from discovering any thing like it, no person 
can read the two chapters, and draw his inference from their con- 
tents alone, without concluding, that the events announced are to 
follow each other in succession, unbroken by any wide interruption 
whatever. Accordingly, though commentators are now generally 
agreed that the hiatus must exist, they are by no means unanimous 
in fixing its situation. 

As before observed, the circumstances foretold as far as the 
twenty-eighth verse of the twenty-fourth chapter, may, by having 
recourse, here and there, to figure, be applied to the calamities 
which befel the Jewish nation : what follows, respecting the coming 
of the Son of man in the clouds of heaven, and his sending his 
angels with a great sound of a trumpet to gather together his elect 
from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other, does 
not, with equal convenience, admit this application : wherefore 
many eminent writers consider the prophecies relating to the Jews 
to terminate with the twenty-eighth verse, and all that follows to 
belong to the greater events commonly designated as the second 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 177 

coming of the Lord, and the general judgment on the world. Un- 
fortunately, however, let both parts of the chapter denote what 
they may, they are connected together by the binding word " im- 
mediately:" — "Immediately after the tribulation of those days, 
shall the sun be darkened," &c— " and then shall appear the sign 
of the Son of man in heaven." Extreme violence, therefore, is 
done to the words, by those who thrust in, between the tribulation 
previously described, and this immediate appearing of the Son of 
man, an interval of two thousand years ! On this account, other 
eminent writers understand the appearing of the Son of man, and 
all the rest of the chapter, to be merely added in amplification of 
the previous subject ; affirming, however, that " Jesus Christ in- 
tended that his disciples should consider the judgment he was 
going to inflict on the Jewish nation, as a forerunner and emblem 
of that universal judgment he is to exercise at the last day;" 
wherefore, they add, " he gives in the twenty-fifth chapter a de- 
scription of the last judgment*:" for which reasons, they place 
the grand hiatus between the two chapters. But, unhappily, a 
particle, the nature of which is to draw things into such close con- 
nexion as admits of nothing being interposed between them, here 
also occurs. The Divine Prophet concludes the twenty-fourth 
chapter with describing the reward which the faithful servant, and 
the punishment which the unfaithful, shall receive at his coming : 
and he commences the twenty-fifth chapter thus : " Tlien shall the 
kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins." Who cannot see 
that the parable of the ten virgins, " five of whom were wise, and 
five were foolish," is a continuation and further illustration of the 
subject introduced by the parable of the faithful and wicked ser- 
vant ; — that both relate to the same series of events, and leave no 
room for supposing an interval of two thousand years between the 
one and the other ? And even if the subjects were not so obviously 
connected, what propriety would there be in passing from one 
event to another so distant, by such a copulative as then, — a 
word that always denotes either identity of time, or immediate 
succession ? 

A third modification of the same general plan of interpretation 
has therefore been proposed by Dr. Doddridge. He adheres to 
the system of the hiatus, but he seems to have felt more strongly 
* Beausobre and L'Enfant's Note on Matt. xxv. 1. 

8* 



178 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

than some, the difficulties with which it is attended : wherefore, in 
hopes to avoid them, he steers a middle course between the two 
theories already noticed. Let us see, then, what degree of proba- 
bility he has been able to give to the scheme. 

He paraphrases the twenty-ninth and thirtieth verses thus : 
" Immediately after the affliction of those days which I have now 
been describing, the sun shall as it were he darkened, and the moon 
shall not seem to give her usual light; and the stars shall fall from 
heaven, and the powers of the heavens, all the mighty machines and 
strong movements above, shall be shaken and broken to pieces ; 
that is, according to the sublimity of that prophetic language to 
which you have been accustomed, the whole civil and ecclesiastical 
constitution of the nation shall not only be shocked, but totally 
dissolved. And then shall there evidently appear such a remark- 
able hand of providence in avenging my quarrel upon this sinful 
people, that it shall be like the sign of the Son of man in heaven at 
the last day ; and all the tribes of the land shall then mourn, and 
they shall see the Son of man coming as it were in the clouds of 
heaven with power and great glory ; for that celestial army which 
shall appear in the air marshalled round the city, shall be a sure 
token to them that the angels of God, and the great Lord of those 
heavenly hosts, are set as it were in array against them." Upon 
this paraphrase I shall only observe, that if the fiery appearances in 
the sky mentioned by Josephus, and which seem to have been 
similar to those observed during the civil wars in England, and at 
various other places and times, are really alluded-to in the pro- 
phecy, it must be in the former part of it. Where Matthew merely 
says, that there should be " famines, and pestilences, and earth- 
quakes, in divers places* ;" Luke amplifies thus : " And great 
earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences : 
and fearful sights and great wonders shall there be from heaven ."f 
This will agree with Josephus: for that historian describes the 
celestial phenomena as having been seen before the siege and cap- 
ture of Jerusalem, and as portending those events J ; wherefore it is 
violating the facts to represent these as being what are foretold as 
the appearing of the Son of man and his coming into the clouds of 
heaven, " after the tribulation of those days :" beside being a 
mean application of a most majestic prediction. However, we have 

* Ch. xxiv. 7. f Ch. xxi. 11. % Jewish War, B. vi. Ch. 5, § 3. 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 179 

only introduced this popular writer's paraphrase, for the sake of his 
note upon it. On the words, Immediately after the tribulation of 
those days, he remarks thus: "Archbishop Tillotson, and Brennius, 
with many other learned interpreters, imagine, that our Lord here 
makes the transition from the destruction of Jerusalem, which had 
been the subject of his discourse thus far, to the general judgment : 
but I think, as it would be very harsh to suppose all the sufferings 
of the Jewish nation, in all ages, to be called the tribulation of 
those days" [what occasion, by the by, for supposing the suffer- 
ings of the Jewish nation in all ages to be treated of at all?] " so 
it would, on the other hand, be equally so to say, that the general 
judgment, which probably will not commence till at least a thousand 
years after their restoration, will happen immediately after their 
sufferings ; nor can I find any one instance in which evdews '[imme- 
diately] is used in such a strange latitude. What is said below 
(in Matt. xxiv. 34, Mark xiii. 30, and Luke xxi. 32,) seems also 
an insuperable objection against such an interpretation. I am 
obliged therefore to explain this section as in the paraphrase ; 
though I acknowledge many of the figures used may with more 
literal propriety be applied to the last day, to which there may be 
a remote though not an immediate reference." Moved by these 
considerations, this worthy divine, though he sees some difficulties 
in the way, determines to apply the prophecy, thus far, to the de- 
struction of Jerusalem. But when he comes to the thirty-sixth 
verse, though the series continues to flow without the least sign of 
interruption, he paraphrases the words, " But of that day and hour 
knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father 
only," in reference to the " final sentence" o£ all mankind ; and 
adds this note : " I cannot agree with Dr. Clarke in referring this 
verse to the destruction of Jerusalem, the particular day of which 
was not a matter of great importance ; and as for the season of it, 
I see not how it could properly be said to be entirely unknown, 
after such an express declaration that it should be in that gene- 
ration. — It seems therefore much fitter, with Dr. Whitby (after 
Grotius,) to explain it of the last day, when heaven and earth shall 
pass away," Well then, the Doctor has now taken the leap. 
The simple connective "but" has carried him over an interval, of 
not less, according to his computation, than three thousand years. 
No sooner however has he taken this leap, than he deems it neces- 



180 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

sary to jump back again. He seems to apply the very next verses 
to the subject just dismissed : but in a note on the fortieth and 
forty-first verses, " Then shall two be in the field," &c. he explicitly 
says, that though these words " may allusively be accommodated 
to the day of 'judgment ■, yet he doubts not they originally refer to 
the destruction of Jerusalem, to which alone they are properly 
applicable." He now, however, determines to fly for the last time 
across the gulph : so, he adds, " I humbly conceive that the grand 
transition, about which commentators are so much divided, and so 
generally mistaken, is made precisely after these two verses." Let 
the reader then examine whether he can here find the marks of 
" the grand transition," so conspicuous to Dr. Doddridge : or 
whether he will not rather find that the discourse proceeds in the 
same unbroken series, making no transition but from the an- 
nouncement of awful facts, to the deducing from them of weighty 
admonitions. Thus Dr. Doddridge's well-meant attempt to relieve 
the hiatus scheme of its difficulties, only issues in a demonstration 
that the difficulties are insuperable. 

Now what unprejudiced mind can resolve to maintain an hypo- 
thesis thus incumbered? When it is so evident that the whole 
prophecy is so connected, that the events really contemplated by its 
Divine Author must flow in uninterrupted succession; who can 
perseveringly determine to break that succession, by supposing a 
chasm in it, of two, three, or, perhaps, ten thousand years ? How 
much more natural and easy a solution of the whole is obtained, 
when a series of occurrences relating to the spiritual state of man, 
is regarded as the principal subject in the mind of the Divine 
Speaker ; when the whole prophecy is considered as describing the 
vicissitudes of religion in the world, and the states of mankind in 
regard to religion, from the time when the predictions were uttered 
till the completion of all prophecy ; and when the circumstances 
attending the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the Jews as a nation, 
so far as they are referred to in the external sense of the words, are 
viewed as types of that part of the series which extends to the con- 
summation of " the mystery of iniquity*," and which is antecedent 
to the "bringing in of everlasting righteousness !"f 

If it should here be asked, Why was not the sequel of the pro- 
phecy also given in terms that would have admitted of an accom- 
* 2 Thess. ii. 7. f Dan. ix. 24, 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 181 

modation to historical events ? it may be answered, Because this 
was impossible, consistently with the plans of Providence, and the 
state of mankind, to which the plans of Providence are always 
adapted. If the consummation of " the mystery of iniquity" might 
be appropriately prefigured by the destruction of Jerusalem, the 
" bringing in of everlasting righteousness" must, if the same style 
of prophecy were continued, be imaged by the restoration and 
eternal prosperity of Jerusalem : but as such restoration was in- 
consistent with the plans of Providence, to have seemed to predict 
it in connexion, with announcements actually referring in their 
lowest sense to historical events, would have led to unfounded 
expectations. Although, then, in the spiritual sense, the whole of 
the prophecy flows on in one unbroken series, and the events, as 
they regard the spiritual state of mankind, proceed in uninterrupted 
succession, that part of them which did not admit of being typi- 
cally acted on the external theatre of human affairs, is described 
by images of a totally different character from the former. In the 
Revelation, however, all the symbols of which are such as do not 
admit of a literal interpretation, the concluding imagery forms a 
proper sequel to that used in the former part of the prophecy 
before us ; for while the Lord Jesus Christ describes the corrup- 
tions of his religion under the type of the calamities ending in the 
destruction of Jerusalem, the Apocalyptic divine depicts its perfect 
restoration, by the symbol of a "new Jerusalem, coming down 
from God out of heaven."* 

This divine book, the Revelation of John, furnishes, also, other 
decisive evidence, that no part of the prophecies that proceeded 
from the immediate lips of the Lord Jesus Christ terminated in the 
destruction of Jerusalem ; but that the circumstances connected 
with that event are merely noticed, as symbolizing events of far 
higher importance. The Revelation was not written, as is ad- 
mitted by most of the critics, till at least twenty years after Jeru- 
salem had been overthrown ; and yet, in that book, many of the 
same prophetic symbols are employed, in describing the latter for- 
tunes of the Christian Church, as are used by the Lord Jesus 
Christ in the prophecy under consideration. We there read of 
" the temple of God, and the altar ;" of " the court which is with- 
out the temple," and " the holy city ;" as being then to be trodden 
* Rev. xxi. 2. 



182 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

under foot by the gentiles*, just as if the overturning of Jerusalem 
by the Romans was yet to be performed. We read also of the sun 
becoming black, and the moon being turned into blood, and the 
stars of heaven falling to the earth f, just as in the passage already 
cited from Matthew. It is likewise said of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
as in the Gospels, "Behold, he cometh with clouds !"| and again, 
John says, " I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the 
cloud one sat like unto the Son of man." § And at the conclusion 
of the book we read, " He which testifieth these things saith, 
Surely I come quickly, Amen :" to which the -church answers, 
" Even so, come Lord Jesus." || Not to mention numerous other 
coincidences. All which plainly evince, that when the same things 
are stated in this prophecy of Jesus Christ, they had a spiritual 
meaning, and did not receive a final fulfilment in the destruction 
of Jerusalem. 

The inference from all this is too obvious not to have been seen 
by some intelligent writers : and we shall not, I apprehend, much 
err, if we conclude this branch of our inquiry in the words of the 
candid and learned Jortin : " The destruction of Jerusalem, and 
that second coming of the Son of man to take vengeance on his 
foes, may perhaps pre-figure the destruction of Antichristian 
tyranny, and the manifestation of Christ, that is, of his power 
and spirit ; and then may commence a better and happier era, and 
such a renovation, as may be called e new heavens and a new 
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.' "^f 

(3.) What then must be the specific nature of that "renovation," 
which this intelligent author saw must be signified by the coming 
of the Son of man, in the clouds of heaven, with power and great 
glory? arid what light do the terms of the prediction afford, re- 
specting the means by which it is to be brought about ? 

We need not stop to explain the words by which this prediction 
is introduced: "Immediately after the tribulation of those days 
shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, 
and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the 
heavens shall be shaken:" for these have been sufficiently explained 
in the remarks we made above, when noticing Sir Isaac Newton's 

Ch. xi. 1, 2. f Ch. vi. 12, 13. J Ch. L 7. 

§ Ch. xiv. 14. Ch. xxii. 20. 

H Jortin'3 Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p. 151, Ed. 1805. 






IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 183 

manner of interpreting these phrases.* But the circumstances, 
that he who is to come is called the Son of man, and that the mode 
of his coming is announced to be in the clouds of heaven ; are so 
remarkable, and so significant, as to demand a particular consi- 
deration. 

(4.) Whatever may be meant by the Lord's prophecies respect- 
ing his second advent, and whatever the time at which it was to 
take place; it is now generally acknowledged, that a personal 
coming in the ethereal clouds cannot be intended. We have seen 
how Dr. Doddridge, with some of the other writers who apply this 
part of the prophecy to the destruction of Jerusalem, understands 
it : and we have noticed what violence is done to the facts of his- 
tory by such an application. The time and manner of the meteoric 
appearance mentioned by Josephus, to which they refer this predic- 
tion, were the following. After relating some remarkable circum- 
stances which occurred at the feast of unleavened bread, not only 
prior to the destruction of the city, but " before the Jews' rebellion, 
and before those commotions that preceded the war " that author 
states, that " a few days after that feast, — before sun-setting, cha- 
riots and troops of soldiers in their armour were seen running about 
among the clouds, and surrounding of cities."f Now, whether this 
was the same sort of electric phenomenon as has been frequently seen 
elsewhere, and has suggested to many observers the idea of armed 
men combating in the clouds; or whether, as some wish to understand 
it, it was a real miracle ; having taken place several years before the 
capture of Jerusalem, it cannot, as noticed above, have been what was 
meant by the sign of the Son of man in heaven, which was not to 
appear till after that event : and to apply so weighty a prediction 
to such an occurrence, is really little better than trifling with the 
prophecies of Scripture, and again making the Word of God of 
none effect. Other writers therefore are of opinion, that these 
words, with much of what follows, have no specific meaning at all, 
but are only intended to denounce divine judgments in general.^ 
however it is most certain, as every person of plain common sense 

* P. 143, 144. 

f Jewish War, B. vi. cli. 5, § 3. (Whiston's translation). 

\ " Then shall the sign, #c. Then shall the supreme power and authority of 
ihe Messiah so conspicuously appear, that all the nations of the earth shall 
Acknowledge him in this dreadful judgment." Beausobre and L'Enfant's Note. 



184 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

will conclude, that the words of Infinite Wisdom, — the declarations 
of Omniscience, — are not thus to be emptied of their meaning, 
and treated as if they were idle bombast of human composition,— 
to be put almost on a level with the 

" — — words 

Spoke by an idiot ; full of sound and fury, 

Signifying nothing." 

It is degrading enough to divinely inspired writers, such as were 
the prophets of the Old Testament, to judge of their effusions by 
the rules of ordinary poetry, (as is done even by critics who profess 
to esteem them most highly,) and to suppose that the expressive 
symbols with which they every where abound, are introduced like 
the artificial figures of uninspired authors, — merely to elevate the 
subject in a general manner, but without any specific and appro- 
priated meaning : but to imagine that he who spake as never man 
spake*, — all whose words are spirit and are life-f, — should not be 
above the tinsel arts of rhetoric, or should be capable of using a 
single expression without a specific meaning, and that a meaning 
worthy of a speaker who was the Truth Itself; is indeed to form 
derogatory notions of his sacred character, and of the nature of 
divine language : it is plucking down heavenly wisdom from above 
the stars, to seat her in the dust. Most assuredly, every syllable 
that ever proceeded from the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ, or that 
was dictated to inspired writers by his spirit, must have had a 
specific, determinate, divine meaning. Thus, when he informs us 
of so important a fact as that the Son of man will come again in 
the clouds of heaven, he must intend to apprise us of some distinct, 
definite, great event : and every word of the prediction must have 
a distinct, definite, spiritual signification. 

It is remarkable, that all the passages in which the second 
coming of the Lord is foretold, speak of it as an appearing of him 
in heaven or the sky, and, generally, in the clouds : It is remark- 
able also, that, whenever his second coming is treated of, it is 
always called the coming of the Son of man ; or, if other words 
are used, they are such as bear, spiritually, the same meaning. 
The peculiar applicability of this phrase to this event, is exemplified 
in an extraordinary manner in the answer of Jesus Christ to the 
adjuration of the high-priest : " The high-priest said unto him, I 
* John vii. 46. f Ch. vi. 63. 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 1S5 

adjure thee, by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be 
the Son of God." He answered in the form of assent customary 
in the language in which he spoke, " Thou hast said :" but imme- 
diately proceeding to announce his second coming, he drops the 
title which he had just claimed of Son of God, and takes instead of 
it that of Son of man ; saying, "Nevertheless I say unto you, that 
hereafter ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of 
power, and coming in the clouds of heaven."* There is in fact 
but one regular prophetic announcement of the second coming of 
the Lord, in which the Divine Being who is to come is not, in so 
many words, stated to be the Son of man, and in which the mode 
of his coming is not affirmed to be in the clouds of heaven : and in 
that one passage, as we shall presently see such other words are 
used, as, mean, in their genuine sense, precisely the same things. f 

We proceed then, first, to investigate the meaning of the Lord's 
title of the Son of Man. We will begin with examining the man- 
ner in which it is used in Scripture ; and having first discovered 
its signification in practice, we will state the grounds of it in 
Analogy. 

(5.) A very remarkable circumstance connected with the use of 
the phrase, " Son of man," in application to the Lord Jesus Christ, 
is this ; that, except in a passage of Daniel and two in the Eeve- 
lation, it is never applied to him except by his own mouth : and in 
those instances is not addressed to him, but is used of him, by 
prophets speaking under inspiration from him. The phrases " Son 
of God," and " Son of man," occur, in reference to him, with 
nearly equal frequency, and are each mentioned about eighty times. 
The title " Son of God," though sometimes used by himself, is 
much oftener applied to him by others; whereas the title "Son of 
man" is never given to him, except in the above three instances, 
by any but himself. The reason, no doubt, is, because the phrase, 
" Son of man," in common apprehension, bears a different meaning 
from that which it carries when used by the Lord Jesus Christ in 
reference to himself ; — because, if applied to him with the ideas 

* Matt. xxvi. 63, 64. See also Dan. vii. 13, 14; Matt. xxiv. 30, 31 ; 
Mark xiii. 26 ; Luke xxi. 27 ; Rev. i. 7, compared with ver. 14 ; Ch. xiv. 14. 

t We do not here include the notices of this event contained in the Apostolic 
Epistles, those notices only being applications of the prophecies delivered by 
Jesus Christ in person, not original predictions. 



156 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

men in general attach to it, it would be Unsuitable and derogatory : 
and therefore, though there are some who prefer to speak of the 
Divine Saviour by his title of Son of man, meaning by it just what 
the words in their ordinary acceptation convey, Paul and the 
other apostles, who knew that in this acceptation they are wholly 
inapplicable to their glorified Lord, never presumed to speak of him 
by that epithet.* 

It is commonly supposed^ that the Lord calls himself the Son 
of man in reference to his birth of a human mother : but in this 
sense it would be entirely unsuited to him after his resurrection ; 
because, while he never was the Son of man in respect to what men 
in general receive from their fathers, his person, as most divines 
acknowledge, underwent such a change at his resurrection, that he 
could no longer be considered, with any propriety, as the son of 
Mary. It is remarkable also, that even while he was in the world, 
though he continually adverted to his relationship to his divine 
Father, he never acknowledged any to his human mother : she 
never was called his mother by his own mouth : on some occasions 
he even refused to own her in that character : and although, in his 
childhood, it is said of her and Joseph, that he " was subject unto 
them :" this arose from the necessity of the case, and because he 
was willing in all things to observe the laws of order and " to fulfil 
all righteousness ;" yet even then he expressly disallowed her 
claims to parental authority.! So also he corrected the gross con- 
ceptions of the Jews respecting the Messiah, as being the Son of 
David, in a manner which plainly shewed, that, as to his person, 
he owned no affinity with that prince, but only with that repre- 
sentative character which David is generally admitted to have 
borne: for, after quoting the passage of the Psalms, in which David 
says, " The Lord said unto my lord, Sit thou on my right hand 
till I make thine enemies thy footstool," he says, " If David, in 
spirit, [or by the spirit, — by inspiration,] call him Lord, how is he 
then his son?"! This question the Jews were unable to answer; 
no more can they answer it, who believe that Jesus Christ is called, 
in a merely literal sense, the Son of man. If he owns no proper 
relationship with David as a man, most certainly he can own none 

* See Paley's Evidences, Pt. II. Ch. iv. § iii. 

f See John ii. 4, Matt xii. 46 to 49, Luke ii. 49. 

% Matt. xxii. 41 to 46. 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 187 

with any other human being. As it is only in a representative 
sense that he is the Son of David, so is it only in a representative 
sense that he is the Son of man. It is not, however, here intended 
to investigate, generally, what is the true character and nature of 
the Lord Jesus Christ, or to establish any doctrine upon that sub- 
ject; but only to endeavour to ascertain what is the scriptural 
sense of the title " Son of man :" and if any doubt should yet 
remain whether it is taken by the Lord in reference to his birth of 
a human mother, the following declaration, which affirms the 
omnipresence of the divine principle so named, should remove all 
uncertainty : Jesus said, " No man hath ascended up to heaven, 
but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is 
in heaven*" Now certainly, if we understand by " the Son of 
man" that personal form which the Lord took from Mary, this was 
not previously in heaven, and, of course, did not " come down from 
heaven;" nor was this Son of man, when speaking these words, in 
heaven. The phrase " Son of man," must then mean some divine 
principle which is not controlled by the limitations of space, but 
is capable of being, at the same moment of time, in heaven, and 
upon earth. 

"What then is there, among the peculiar characters of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, to which this description is appropriate ? His most 
peculiar character is, that he is the Word : "In the beginning 
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was 
God. — And the Word was made fiesh."f What is the Divine 
Word, but the Divine Truth ? and Jesus Christ declares that he is 
"the Truth. "J He is also the Word of the Father; and, 
addressing the Father, he says, "thy Word is Truth." § Suppose, 
then, it should be in reference to his character as the Word, or the 
Truth, that Jesus Christ calls himself the Son of man. Let us 
assume this to be the case; and let us see how this idea will 
agree with the occasions on which he designates himself by this 
title. 

For it is to be observed, that the Divine Being assumes, in the 
Scriptures, a great variety of names and titles ; and it cannot be 
imagined, if the Scriptures are really dictated by Infinite Wisdom, 
that these are applied in an irregular, capricious manner. In the 
Old Testament the Lord takes the names of Jehovah, the Lord, 

♦ John iii. 13. t John i. 1, 14. \ Ch. jriv. 6. § Ch. xvii 17. 



188 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

God, the Lord Jehovih or Lord God, Jehovah Sabaoth or Lord of 
Hosts, the Holy One of Israel, the Mighty One of Jacob, the 
Almighty, and several others : In the New Testament we find ap- 
plied to him the names of Jesus, Christ, the Lord, God, the Son 
of God, the Son of man, the Prophet, the Lamb, &c. There can 
be no doubt that there is some distinction of meaning in them all ; 
as also, that that name is always employed which best suits the 
specific occasion. And we will venture to affirm that it would be 
found, on an examination of the Gospels, that when the divine 
power of the Lord Jesus Christ, his divinity, his unity with the 
Father, faith in him, and life from him, are the subjects treated-of, 
he calls himself " the Son," and " the Son of God ;" but that 
where the subjects of discourse are his passion, judgment, and, in 
general, redemption, salvation, and reformation, as also his second 
coming, he always calls himself the Son of man. Now if he 
applies this title to himself in reference to his character of the 
Divine Truth, or Word, we shall easily see the reason why he em- 
ploys it on these occasions. We will adduce a few instances by 
way of illustration. 

Several examples might be given of the Lord's using this name 
when his passion is treated-of ; as in this passage : Jesus said t® 
the disciples, " Behold, we go up to Jerusalem ; and the Son of man 
shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes ; and 
they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the 
Gentiles ; and they shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and 
shall spit upon him, and shall kill him : and the third day he shall 
rise again."* Were it not for the distinct meaning of the phrase, 
" Son of man," would not Jesus, who begins the speech in the first 
person, "#?£go up to Jerusalem," have continued it in the same 
person, and have said, " / shall be delivered to the chief-priests," 
&c. ? The reason why he changed the person, and said " the Son 
of man shall be delivered," &c. ; was, because He suffered tho Jews 
to treat his natural body in a manner answering to that in which 
they had spiritually treated his Word ; and because the sufferings 
to which he submitted, represented, by an exact analogy, the 
manner in which the Jews had perverted the Word, or the Divine 
Truth contained in it, and had deprived it, as to themselves, of all 
life, having " made it of none effect by their traditions." We see 
* Mark x. 33, 34. 






IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 189 

then a good reason why, when foretelling his passion, he called 
himself the Son of man, if this title belongs to him in his character 
as the Word. 

The same reason will account for his always calling himself 
the Son of man when judgment is treated of. Thus he says, in the 
sequel of the prophecy before us, " When the Son of man shall 
come in his glory, — then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory : 
and before him shall be gathered all nations ; and he shall separate 
them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the 
goats* :" where judgment is evidently the subject, and the Judge 
is called the Son of man. The reason is explicitly stated in the 
following passage : " The Father judgeth no man, but hath com* 
mitted all judgment to the Souf ;"— «." and," as is added, a little 
below, " hath given him authority to execute judgment also :"-*«. 
Why ?— became he is the Son ofman% :"-^a reason which would 
be no reason at all, were it not that this title designates the Lord 
as to his character of Divine Truth, or the Word, which, all know, 
is what must judge every one ; Accordingly, the Lord says on the 
same subject, " If any man hear my words and believe not, /judge 
him not : for I came not to judge the world, but to save the 
world : he that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one 
that judgeth him ; the toord that I have spoken, the same shall 
judge him in the last day."§ This proof seems demonstrative. 
We are repeatedly assured that the world will be judged by the Son 
of man : yet Jesus declares that he does not come to judge in 
person, but that his word is what judges : consequently, when he 
takes the title of Son of man, it must be in reference to his cha- 
racter as the Itiv'me Truth or Word, 

W r e have also stated, that, for the same reason, the Lord is called 
the Son of man when redemption, salvation, and reformation, are 
the subjects of discourse. Thus we read, " The Son of man came 
to give his life a ransom [or redemption] for many|| :" "The Son of 
man came to seek and to save that which was lost^[ :" " He that 
soweth good seed is the Son of man** :" with many similar state- 
ments. Now as the Lord effects these works in and for man by 
means of his Truth or Word ; and as the title, " Son of man," 

* Matt. xxv. 31, 32 : see also Ch. xix. 28. 

f John v. 22. % Ver. 27. § John xii. 47, 48. 

U Luke ix. 56. fl Ch. xix. 10. •• Matt. xiii. 37. 



190 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

means the Lord as to the Truth or the Word j therefore he assumes 
this title when treating of these his divine operations. Admitting 
this idea, in all the instances which have been adduced, and in 
every other that can be found, the use of the title, " Son of man,'* 
is singularly beautiful and appropriate : upon any other supposi- 
tion, it is impossible to account for its selection, in preference to 
any other of the Lord's divine names. 

The instances then in which the Lord speaks of himself as the 
Son of man, appear amply to evince, that he always assumes this 
name in reference to his character as the Divine Truth or Word : 
but a passage remains to be mentioned which alone is sufficient to 
make it certain. We have seen above, that he who is to come 
again, is constantly, one instance alone excepted, called the Son of 
man : that instance is in the nineteenth chapter of the Bevelation, 
where the second coming of the Lord is described in these words : 
< c I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse ; and he that sat 
on him is called Faithful and True ; and in righteousness doth he 
judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his 
head were many crowns : and he had a name written which no 
man knew but he himself : and he was clothed in a vesture dipped 
in blood. And bis name is called the Word of God."* Here is 
an open declaration, that it is in his character as the Word of God, 
that the Lord is to make his second advent : but in every other 
instance it is said that he is to come as the Son of man : the infer- 
ence is unavoidable, that, in Scripture-language, the Son of man 
means the Word of God. 

(6.) The meaning of the phrase, " Son of man," is now, it is 
hoped, pretty clearly established by its use in Scripture : it is ne- 
cessary however to add a word respecting its ground in Analogy. 

It was briefly shewn in our last Lecture, that the natural rela- 
tion between a son and his father exaotly answers to that which 
exists between the thoughts of the understanding and the affections 
of the will, Reduce a man, if that were possible, to a state of en- 
tire apathy, so that he should not be animated by any affection or 

* Yer. 11, 12, 13. Observe how this statement, that the Word of God was 
seen in heaven riding on a white horse, corroborates the signification of horses, 
and of riding on them, as given above, p. 170. If a horse denotes the under- 
standing of truth, and to ride on a horse to communicate instruction, we see a 
beautiful reason why the Word of God personified was seen in that action. 






IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, 191 

desire whatever; and his torpor would be so complete, that he 
would not be conscious of a single thought ; he would, in fact, be 
deprived of the power of thinking. Wherever thought is in exer- 
cise, affection is in exercise ; and the former is in all eases gener- 
ated by the latter. No one, indeed, while life remains, can be so 
deprived of affection of every kind, and for every object, as to be- 
come void of thought altogether : yet most people experience sea- 
sons in which their thoughts are less active than at others ; and if 
they examine the state of their affections at such times, they will 
invariably find them to be listless and unexcited : "on the con- 
trary," as observed above*, " when any affection is in high excite- 
ment, how active are the thoughts 1 What a tumult of ideas ; what 
multitudes of reasonings, crowd into the intellect, when violent 
passions agitate the will." These are facts which every one must 
have observed ; and they afford a proof which is demonstrative, 
that thought is the offspring of affection. 

But what is the object of all man's affections, but goodness ? 
not indeed, in all cases, goodness which is really such, hut what he 
chooses to consider as such. Evil is too often substituted for good- 
ness in man's affections : but then, it is never evil, as evil, which 
he makes the object of his attachment ; but evil appearing to him 
as good : whatever he loves, he loves for the sake of something in 
it which he finds delightful to him, and which he deems a good. 
Good then, either really or mistakenly such, is always the object of 
man's love or affections. In like manner, truth, or something that 
may be referred to truth, is always the material of his thoughts. His 
opinions may be false ; hut they are true to him ; and he dwells on and 
maintains them as truth, A man's thoughts, likewise, or the opinions 
which in his heart he accounts to be true, always take a character 
from his affections, and from the objects which he accounts to be good. 
Whatever he loves, he also loves to think of. If it is an object in 
prospeot, his thoughts run upon the means of obtaining it ; if in 
possession, his thoughts dwell upon the satisfaction which he finds 
in it. There are, then, various considerations which may convince 
us, that there is the same relation between Good and Truth, as there 
is between Affection and Thought : the one may be considered as 
an outbirth, which discovers the existence and the quality of the 
other : and as Thought is manifestly the offspring of Affection, so 

* P. 115. 



192 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

is Truth the progeny of Good. In the language then of analogy, 
Truth would be called the son, and Good the father. 

According to this view, it will easily be seen, why "the Word" 
mentioned in the Scriptures, which we have already seen is another 
name for "the Truth," is called, in the language of Analogy, "the 
Son of God ;" and thus it will also be seen, that the phrase, " the 
Son of God," decyphered by the laws of Analogy, means " the 
Divine Truth," This explanation will not resolve "the Son of 
God" into a mere attribute, and nothing more, if all that is said 
on the subject in the Scriptures be taken into consideration ; nor, 
indeed, if reason alone be consulted. For though we can form an 
idea of Truth, or of Divine Truth, abstractedly, as a property or 
attribute, yet we readily perceive that a mere property or attribute 
is nothing, separate from a personal being whose property or attri- 
bute it is. The Son of God, then, of the Scriptures, is the Divine 
Truth personified ; as is evident from its being a name peculiarly- 
given to " the Word made flesh," and never used till the Word 
was made flesh, otherwise than in reference to that event. 

But although it must easily be seen, that, in the language of 
Analogy, the Divine Truth may be properly called the Son of God; 
it may not so immediately be discovered, why, as stated above, the 
Divine Truth is also called the Son of man. Here then it is 
necessary to observe, that though the Divine Truth is described by 
both these names, they respectively refer to it under a different 
form; so that the appearance of the Divine Truth which is desig- 
nated by the title " Son of man," is lower and more external than 
that which is designated by the title " Son of God," which is 
respectively higher and more internal. The one is the pure Divine 
Truth as proceeding from the bosom of Divine Love, and not yet 
intelligible to created beings, but in its first preparation for be- 
coming so ; the other is the Divine Truth under an accommodated 
form, adapted to the capacities of apprehension and reception in 
finite and human creatures. This will account for its being called 
the Son of man. In no state whatever does the Divine Truth 
proceed from man : man can never be the author of it : yet it is 
on account of man that it is presented in the form of which we 
are here speaking : and being so accommodated for his sake, and 
by bringing it within the sphere of the human intellect as that 
exists both in this world and the worlds beyond the grave, it is 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 193 

agreeable to analogy to denominate it, thus manifested, the Son c t 
man. 

The Son of God, then, in the symbolic language of Analogy and 
of the Scriptures, is the pure Divine Truth itself; the Son of man 
is the same Divine Truth so modified as to be accommodated to 
human reception. Both titles, beside this abstract meaning, also 
refer to the Divine Truth personified in the form of the Lord Jesus 
Christ.* 

(7.) If then the title Son of man, in the language of Scripture, 
founded in that of Analogy, is appropriated to the Lord in his 
character as the Word; it is easy to see that the "renovation" of 
pure Christianity which is in general indicated by the predictions 
respecting the second coming of the Lord as the Son of man, must 
be brought about by a renewed and more extensive discovery of 

* It will corroborate what is advanced above, here to observe, how naturally 
the idiom of the language in which the Scriptures of the Old Testament are 
written, coincides, frequently, with the language of Analogy. In the language 
of analogy, we have seen that the term Son denotes a relationship different from 
that of natural generation ; and in the Hebrew idiom it is often applied to 
things which are not literally connected by any such relationship. Thus in the 
original of Job v. 7, sparks are called "the sons of the burning coal;" an arrow, 
again, is " the son of the bow," [ch. xli. 28,] or arrows are " the sons of the 
quiver." [Lam. iii. 13.] So, a, fruitful hill is " a horn of the son of oil," [Isa. v. 1,] 
a valiant man is " the son of strength," [1 Sam. xiv. 52,] and a person in danger 
of dying, — fitted for it, as it were, by circumstances, — is " a son of death." 
[1 Sam. xxvi. 16, 2 Sam. xii. 5.] Gussetius (in his Comment. Ling. Eeb. sub 
voce HJl) reckons ten classes of the figurative application, in the Old Testa- 
ment, of the term son ; and as the New Testament, though written in Greek, 
follows, in its language, the Hebrew idiom, he shews that all these uses of the 
word have their parallels in the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles. If 
then a spark is termed " the son of the coal," and an arrow " the son of the 
bow," or of "the quiver" as proceeding thence; most properly is the Divine 
Truth, as proceeding from the Divine Essence, or Divine Good, denominated 
" the Son of God" — " the Only-begotten of the Father ;" and if a person in the 
prospect of certain or imminent death, is called " a son of death," because fitted 
for it, and as it were appointed to it, as the phrase is sometimes rendered in the 
English version; [Ps. lxxix. 11, cii. 20;] most properly is the Divine Truth 
named " the Son of man," when adapted to human apprehension. 

Another instance, connected with the present subject, of the agreement of the 
Hebrew tongue with the language of Analogy, may also be worth remarking ; 
it is, that as, in the language of Analogy, the term father has reference to the 
principle of love or good, or to will in general ; so the word by which it is ex- 
pressed in Hebrew, is derived from a root which signifies to will or desire. 



194 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

the divine truth of his Word. But how does this agree with the an- 
nouncement, that " they should see the Son of man coming in the 
clouds of heaven with power and great glory ?" What can those 
clouds be, in which the Son of man, or the Lord as to his Divine 
Truth, will make his advent ? 

It will go a good way towards putting our conceptions in a right 
train upon this question, to notice, (what seems generally to have 
been much overlooked,) that the circumstance of the Lord's having 
an abode in the clouds, is by no means discovered for the first 
time in the predictions relating to his second coming. All that is 
at all new in this respect, in these predictions, is, that the Lord 
will then be seen coming in the clouds ; which is never stated in 
reference to his first coming in the flesh : but that he at all times 
shelters his glory in the clouds, or has his residence behind or 
within them, and uses them as a vehicle, was known in the time 
of David, and of Moses. The latter says, "There is none like 
unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heavens in thy 
help, and in his excellency upon the shy*; " where the word trans- 
lated the ski/, is one which in many other places is rendered the 
clouds. But the book of Psalms abounds, more than any other 
book of the Holy Word, with magnificent descriptions of the Lord, 
and of the modes of his appearance j and there we find him conti- 
nually spoken of as attended with clouds. We will here only 
notice one sublime passage, which alone is sufficient to instruct us 
in the meaning of this important symbol. 

The hundred-and-fourth Psalm commences thus : " Bless the 
Lord, O my soul ! Lord my God, thou art very great, thou 
art clothed with honour and majesty : who coverest thyself with 
light as with a garment ; who stretchest out the heavens like a 
curtain : who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters ; 
who maketh the clouds his chariot ; who walketh upon the wings 
of the wind.'* Whoever will consult, with this, the other passages 
in which clouds are mentioned in the same bookf, must be 
satisfied, that some spiritual thing of which clouds are the 
proper emblems, is continually ascribed in the Holy Word to 
Jehovah, as a regular appendage of his ineffable majesty, and 

* Deut. xxxiii. 26. 

t See particularly Ps. xviii. 10, 11, xxxvi. 5, lxviii. 32, 33, 34, xcvii. 1, 2, 

cviii. 3, 4. 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, 195 

must be convinced, that though they are called the clouds of heaven 
and the clouds of the sky, the vapoury clouds that surround the 
earth, and the visible heavens or sky in which they float, are not the 
things really intended. 

It is first to be observed, as a general remark, that the phseno- 
mena of nature, when adverted to in the Word of God, are not re- 
garded in the manner in which they are uuderstood by philosophers, 
when this differs from their appearance to the senses, but are 
always spoken of in the popular way in which they strike an ordi- 
nary observer : for the design of Scripture is, not to give lessons 
in natural philosophy, but of spiritual wisdom, only using the 
images taken from nature for that purpose. Thus the Scriptures, 
when they allude to the motion of the sun, always seem to assume 
it to be real, speaking of it as rejoicing to run its course, and the 
like ; without saying anything of the real fact, so different from the 
appearance, that it is not the sun which moves, but the earth. Thus 
again the truth of philosophy informs us, that the clouds do not so 
properly belong to the heavens or sky, as to the earth, being 
nothing but a collection of watery particles exhaled from the earth 
and sea, and forming a sort of hollow sphere at a small distance 
from the terraqueous globe : whereas, to the eye alone, they appear 
as the lowest basis of the ethereal regions, — as a sort of floor 
spread under the starry heavens. So do the starry heavens themselves 
appear to be very different from what they are ascertained to be by 
science, wearing the appearance of a blue arch of some positive 
substance, with the heavenly bodies, as they are called, stuck on it : 
whereas the heaveuly bodies are known to be other suns and worlds 
suspended by some inconceivable power in the imensity of space ; 
whilst the blueness of the seeming vault of the sky is merely the 
consequence of our looking into a dark void through the denser 
atmosphere which surrounds the earth, and which is illuminated 
with the light of the sun or moon. Now it is according to these 
appearances, that the heavens and etheral regions, from the highest 
part of them, which appears studded with stars, to the lowest 
which is bounded by clouds, are considered in the Holy Word; 
and this for the sake of the exactly suitable emblems which they 
thus afford for the conveyance of instruction in divine subjects. 
With this sort of picture, then, of the visible heavens in our 
thoughts, let us see how the Science of Analogies will help us 
to understand the passage we have quoted from the Psalms. 



196 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

" Lord my God, thou art very great, thou art clothed with 
honour and majesty." Here we have a description of the Lord, as 
he is in himself, and in the first emanation of his divine energies, 
as they proceed to impart spiritual life to his creatures. When he 
is said to be " very great," the reference is to his infinity, his un- 
fathomable greatness, his inconceivable love, as it exists in himself, 
beyond the remotest comprehension of any finite creature : and 
when it is said, " thou art clothed with honour and majesty," the 
reference is to the first putting forth of his divine excellencies of 
love and wisdom, in a sphere of intense ardour without him, and 
forming as it were " a sun of righteousness with healing in its 
rays," — that beneficent fountain of life to all creatures, of which it 
is said in the gospel, that the Lord " maketh his sun to rise on the 
evil and on the good." This is considered, in reference to the 
images drawn from the visible heavens, presently made use of, as 
beyond any thing that the eye can reach, — as exceeding the highest 
limits of the firmament. Then it follows, "Who coverest thyself 
with light as with a garment ; " which is an image taken from the 
lucidity that fills the visible heavens, and which might naturally be 
regarded as the first covering of that still higher region, supposed 
to be the seat of God's immediate presence. As he no where in 
nature presents himself to the sight, a mind acknowledging his 
existence, yet drawing its ideas from the appearance of the heavens 
uncorrected by science, would readily conceive the immediate abode 
of Deity to be above all that the eye can reach, and concealed from 
its view by the lucid mantle of the starry heaven. We well know, 
however, that this cannot be the case. We know that the starry 
heaven is in fact below us as well as above us, so that all height 
therein is merely relative to the situation of our globe at any given 
moment ; wherefore it is in vain to think, by soaring in imagina- 
tion beyond the limits of the visible heavens, to find the immediate 
throne of God. Consequently, the light which we behold in the 
firmament is not the garment with which the Lord covereth him- 
self : yet it is here spoken of as if it were ; and why ? because it is 
the proper symbol and representative of something which really is 
so. We have noticed, in our last Lecture, what the spiritual thing 
is of which light is the appropriate emblem. It is indeed so 
obvious, that every one sees it at the first glance : and common 
language retains the use of the symbol, as an elegant way of desig- 
nating the thing to which it answers in spiritual analogy. What 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 197 



is more usual than to talk of the light of truth and the darl 
of ignorance, — to speak of writings or sentiments as containing 
light in them, or the contrary, when we mean that they are ir- 
radiated or otherwise with the beams of truth? The light then 
with which the Lord covereth himself as with a garment, is the 
Divine Truth proceeding from, and investing his Divine Good,— 
containing also the Divine Good, which is spiritual heat, in its 
bosom, and thus recreating with its rays all the angelic hosts. 

We pass over a few words, the explanation of which is not 
essential to the inquiry before us, to notice those which say of the 
Lord, that " he maketh the clouds his chariot." The clouds, as 
observed above, are usually considered in Scripture merely as the 
lowest base of the visible heavens, and as forming a covering or 
shade to the resplendent light that glows above them : hence as the 
light signifies the Divine Truth in all the glory of its essentially 
divine and spiritual nature, the clouds signify the Divine Truth in 
comparative obscurity, or when shaded over by appearances suited 
to, and, in some respects, taken from, the ideas of the merely 
natural man. Here the truth of natural philosophy will help to 
illustrate the subject. Although the clouds appear to belong to 
the heavens, they in reality are composed of exhalations from the 
earth : yet they are always irradiated, more or less, by light from 
the etherial regions, which they transmit to the earth. Thus they 
aptly represent the Divine Truth that proceeds from the Lord, 
when enveloped in a covering of natural images and natural ideas, 
taken from the perceptions of man in a natural state of existence. 
As light, which is previously mentioned, represents, and is the 
appropriate symbol of, the Divine Truth as it is perceived in heaven, 
and by illuminated spiritual minds, so the clouds represent, and 
are the equally appropriate images of, the Divine Truth as it exists 
on earth, conveyed in natural language, and clothed with ideas 
and images taken from the world of nature. Thus they exactly 
typify the Holy Word, as we possess it, written in a book : that is, 
they represent and signify the Word in its literal sense, in which 
it is Divine Truth in its shade, or in its lowest or ultimate form, 
adapted and modified to the conceptions of man considered even as 
a natural and carnal being ; but within which, or in its spiritual 
sense, is Divine Truth in its clearness and glory, adapted to 
illuminate with heavenly wisdom the most refined intellect of 



198 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

man considered as a spiritual being, and of pure spirits them- 
selves. 

But to point out more distinctly what we mean when we speak 
of Divine Truth in its clearness and Divine Truth in its shade ; or 
between Divine Truth as represented by the light of the firmament 
and Divine Truth as imaged by the clouds of heaven; it may 
be expedient to give an example. Every sentence of the Divine 
Word will afford us one ; though the difference between these two 
kinds of Divine Truth will appear more striking in some examples 
than in others. Let us take the prophecy which we are con- 
sidering : " They shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of 
heaven with power and great glory." Here, all the expressions 
made use of, are images taken from the world of nature : such are 
the terms, Son of man, clouds, power, and glory. It is obvious 
that the sense which results from the mere combination of the 
words, or the literal sense, cannot be that intended by the Divine 
Speaker ; still, if the words were spoken by the Lord himself, they 
must be Divine Truth : of course they must be Divine Truth in 
its lowest form, or in its shade, in which the genuine meaning is 
veiled over in such a manner as not immediately to be seen, al- 
though it nevertheless is actually contained within them. The genuine 
meaning is, that the Lord, who is the Divine Truth itself, will dis- 
cover himself, or impart a just knowledge concerning himself and 
the things of his kingdom, by opening the literal sense of the Holy 
Word, and disclosing its spiritual contents. This, then, is that 
Divine* Truth contained in these words, which is represented by the 
emblem of light or glory; but the words themselves, and the literal 
sense of them, are the clouds by which the light is shaded and 
veiled over, — the " covering upon the glory."* 

To draw a general remark from this example, it may be ob- 
served, that it illustrates the manner in which the Holy Word is 
written throughout ; only there is a great variety in the density of 
the veil which the cloud of the literal expression throws over the 
glory of its spiritual contents. In nature there are clouds of very 
different kinds, varying from a degree of density that almost ex- 
cludes entirely the light of heaven, to a thinness which presents 
scarcely any impediment to the illuminating rays : and just such is 
the varying character of the letter of the Scriptures, considered as a 
* Isa. iv. 5. 






IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 199 

covering to the genuine Divine Truth contained within. In many- 
passages, as in that before us, the cloud of the letter is so thick, 
that nothing more of the genuine truth shines through than this ; 
— that some extraordinary divine interference will at some period 
take place : but of the nature of this interference, the letter alone 
gives us no information. In some parts of the Divine Word, the 
clouds of the letter are thicker still ; as is the case in all those pas- 
sages from which, if taken alone, sentiments really contrary to the 
genuine truth might be deduced: such are the passages which 
seem to ascribe malignant feelings to the Divine Being, and which 
represent him as changing his mind, or as being in any way subject 
to human infirmities. But in other parts the clouds of which the 
letter is composed are of so thin a texture, that the light of the 
genuine truth within is translucent through it ; as is the case in the 
law of the decalogue, and in many of the Lord's precepts in the 
Gospel. In fact, all that is absolutely necessary to salvation, is, 
in various parts of the Word, plainly revealed; and all such 
passages, though forming part of what the Scripture calls clouds, 
are, nevertheless, bright and transparent clouds, such as suffer the 
rays of heavenly light freely to pass through them. Still, clear 
aud bright though the clouds of the letter in many places are, they 
do not cease to be clouds, and are not that undiluted light with 
which the Lord covers his immediate majesty as with a garment. 
Though a great portion of the literal sense of the Word of God 
presents us with genuine truth, yet every part of it contains stores 
of light still more resplendent within. Every part of the letter is a 
cloud, though often a beautiful and bright cloud ; and every part 
of it contains a more brilliant glory in its bosom. 

Surely it were much to be wished, that mankind in general could 
be brought to view the Scriptures in this exalting light ! How en- 
tirely would the mists of infidelity be dispersed before it ! How 
completely would the whole of Sacred Writ be seen to be in har- 
mony with the purest attributes of God, and with the highest rea- 
son of man ! And, surely, it is easy to see, that there may exist a 
distinction, in the Scriptures, between Divine Truth in its clearness 
and Divine Truth in its shade, and that the former is contained in 
their truly spiritual meaning, and the latter in their literal sense ; 
and also, how aptly they are represented by the light of the firma- 
ment, or the glory which is always spoken of as surrounding the 



200 PLENAEY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

Divine Presence, and the clouds which veil it ! Surely, the pro- 
phecy before us clearly proves the existence of this distinction, and 
of these senses. When, indeed, we first hear it advanced, that 
clouds, in Holy Writ, when mentioned in respect to the Lord, sig- 
nify Divine Truth clothed with natural ideas and images, or the 
Divine Word in its literal sense, the assertion may seem arbitrary 
and foreign to the subject : yet how natural does it appear on re- 
flection ! If, as is undeniable, the light of the firmament is an ap- 
propriate symbol of Divine Truth in its purity ; if it thus is seen 
that there is between pure light and pure truth a certain and un- 
alterable analogy or mutual relation, so that to mention the one 
when we mean the other is a highly expressive form of speaking, 
grounded in the very nature and constitution of things ; then, when 
the relation between the light of the firmament and the clouds is 
examined, it will be found to be exactly similar to that between 
pure spiritual truth, seen in its unclouded, abstract nature, and the 
same truth veiled over with symbolic language, or invested with a 
covering of images taken from the world of nature and the ideas of 
man in his natural state of existence ; or between the interior con- 
tents of the Holy Word and its literal form : and thus it will be 
seen, that to speak of clouds when thereby is meant the literal sense 
of the Holy Word, is a mode of expression which is also founded 
in the very nature and immutable relations of things. 

(8.) The meaning then of this prophecy, and the means by which 
the " renovation," which Dr. Jortin saw must be intended by it, 
will be brought about, may now, it is hoped, be sufficiently evident. 
If it be true that by the clouds are signified Divine Truth in its 
lowest or ultimate form, which is the same thing as the Word in 
its literal sense, it follows, that when the Lord informs us that his 
second coming will be in the clouds, we are to understand, that it 
will be effected by an opening of the true meaning of the Holy 
Word : on which account, in the passage which we have noticed 
from the Psalms, the clouds are called the Lord's chariot ; a chariot 
signifying doctrine or instruction, and it being by means of the 
letter of his Word, and never without it, that the Lord communi- 
cates instruction to man. And when we are apprised, that the 
.jord always takes the title of Son of man in reference to his cha- 
racter as Divine Truth, and as Divine Truth adapted to enlighten 
human minds we see with what peculiar propriety it is that he an- 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 201 

nounces his coming, in this character, in the clouds, and with power 
and great glory ; these phrases denoting, that within, and out of, 
the letter of the Holy Word, the efficacy and light of pure Divine 
Truth will be made apparent.* 

3. The last example which we are to offer of the applicability of 
the Science of Analogies to the interpretation of the prophetical 
part of the Word of God, is to be taken from the writings of the 
Apocalyptic Divine; and we have selected his vision of spiritual 
Babylon; the relation of which, after mentioning that an angel 
came to shew him the vision, he commences thus : " So he carried 
me away in the spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman 
sit upon a scarlet-coloured beast, full • of names of blasphemy, 
having seven heads and ten homs. And the woman was arrayed in 
purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones 
and pearls ; having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations 
and filthiness of her fornication ; and upon her forehead was a 
name written, Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots 
and abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunken 
with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of 
Jesus. "f The description is continued through the whole of this 
and of the following chapter. 

As soon as men began freely to examine the Scriptures, at the 
time of the Reformation, the palpable manner in which the Eoman 
Catholic Eeligion is portrayed under the emblem of this woman, 
struck every mind ; and from that time to this it has been gene- 
rally admitted by Protestants, that the Harlot of Babylon is the 
Eoman Catholic Church. The application is undoubtedly just : yet 
the deep reason of the various symbols employed, has not, perhaps, 
been generally seen. For instance : Why is she called, not Eome, 
but Babylon ? Should it be answered, Because Babylon was the 
greatest enemy and destroyer of the church of God under the 
Mosaic dispensation : the question will recur, Why, under a dis- 
pensation of an entirely representative character, was the king of 
Babylon made the instrument of destroying the metropolis of 
Judaea and the temple of God? Doubtless it must have been, 

* See the signification of clouds, when mentioned in Scripture, further illus- 
trated in the Appendix, No. IV. 
t Rev. xvii. 3 to 6. 

0* 



202 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

because a representative character attaches also to Babylon, when- 
ever it is named in the Holy Word : and if modern Eome is spiri- 
tually called Babylon, it must be, because the representative cha- 
racter of the Scripture Babylon has become the real one of the 
Roman Catholic Church. 

(1.) When the situation of the places mentioned in the Holy 
Word, does not alone, as in the case of the land of Gog, indicate 
what principle they symbolize, it is necessary to note the chief 
circumstances predicated respecting them: which will generally 
point to the truth. 

Among the various motives to action by which mankind are 
governed, there is none which exercises a wider influence than the 
love of power. This is little attended to among ordinary indi- 
viduals, because cases do not often occur for its exercise in a very 
extended form ; and the innumerable instances in which it displays 
itself in little matters, escape attention from the very circumstance 
of their frequency. Yet almost every family will furnish us with 
instances of persons who are desirous to domineer over those 
around them : and that the principle is deeply rooted in human 
nature, in its present state, is evinced by its spontaneous develop- 
ment in the minds of the young. One cannot become domesticated 
in a seminary for youth, without seeing it strongly displayed : even 
the greatest care on the part of the master can seldom prevent the 
exercise of cruel tyranny on the part of the stronger children over 
the weaker. But when we turn our view from private scenes to 
public, the monster stalks before us in the most gigantic form. 
How many conquerors, miscalled heroes, figure in the pages of 
history, who have spent their lives in the endeavour to aggrandize 
their power by the subjugation of the surrounding nations ! and 
how many sovereigns, whom the vicinity of more powerful states 
has prevented from signalizing themselves by foreign conquests, 
have gratified their lust of dominion by striving to render their 
authority in their own kingdoms more absolute, setting their own 
will above the laws, and disposing at pleasure of the property and 
lives of their subjects ! In short, the lust of dominion in private 
and in public, with the cruelty and oppression with which it is 
associated, is the source of the greatest evils which afflict mankind: 
even the lust of gold, — the auri sacra fames, — so celebrated for 
the mischiefs of which it is the origin, is, in comparison, a gentle 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 203 

demon. The lust of dominion, soften it as we may by the milder 
names of ambition and the love of power, is the most direful evil 
which can reign in the human heart ; and it cannot be doubted, 
that, when encouraged there, and made the ruling motive of the 
life, it must finally sink its victim to the lowest gulf which 
yawns in the kingdom of darkness to swallow up the wicked of 
mankind. 

But if the lust of dominion in general is of so direful a character, 
what must we think of it when it seeks to accomplish its ends by 
hypocritical pretences ? If to endeavour to subjugate others to its 
own caprice by the arms of the flesh, is a crime of so deep a die ; 
what does it become when it employs, in the same design, the 
artillery of heaven ?. If to desire to rule over all the kingdoms of 
the world, is so corrupt a lust ; what words can express its atrocity, 
when it seats itself on the pinnacle of the temple, and arrogates 
such a sovereignty as belongs to God alone ? This, it must be 
admitted, is the worst form which the lust of dominion can ever 
assume. And this most dreadful form of this most pernicious lust, 
is what is specifically represented by Babylon in the Holy Word : 
as will appear by noticing what is generally predicated of it in the 
passages where it is mentioned. 

The place which the Greeks called Babylon was by the Hebrews 
called Babel. The first occasion on which it is mentioned in Scrip- 
ture, is, when its first building is related. It is said to have been 
built by Nimrod ; and its representation may in some degree be 
gathered from the character given of its founder, of whom it is 
said, that " he began to be a mighty one in the earth," and that 
" he was a mighty hunter before the Lord* ;'■ by which is generally 
understood, that he was a hunter whose game was men, — a con- 
queror whose pursuit was power. Next we have an account of the 
erection of the tower of Babel : and the purpose of the builders is 
so stated, as to leave no doubt of the symbolic meaning of the place 
they built : for they said, " Go to, let us build us a city, and a 
tower whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make ns a 
name."f Whatever might be the nature of the historical fact here 
referred to, it is plain that the terms in which it is related must be 
intended to convey a spiritual meaning : for it is impossible to 
suppose that any persons could think it practicable literally to 
* Gen x. 8, 9. t Cfa. xi. 4. 



204 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

build up to heaven ; under this mode of expression, then, is inti- 
mated the desire of some who lived at that time, to found a do- 
minion that should arrogate authority over the souls of men as well 
as their bodies. 

But there is no passage which exhibits more plainly than is done 
in a prophecy of Isaiah, the meaning of Babylon, as denoting the 
lust of ruling over both the bodies and s«uls of men, by perverting 
the doctrines of the church, and inventing fictions and imposing 
them as such doctrines, so as to establish, by their means, an un- 
limited dominion. The prophet exclaims, " How art thou fallen 
from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning ! how art thou cut 
down to the ground which didst weaken the nations ? For thou 
saidst within thy heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my 
throne above the stars of God, I will also sit upon the mount of the 
congregation in the sides of the north, I will ascend above the heights 
of the clouds, I will be like the Most High'' * It is from this pas- 
sage that the prince of the devils has acquired the name of Lucifer ; 
yet whoever will attentively read the whole chapter, must see 
clearly, that this name is not given to any individual evil spirit, 
but that the pride of dominion, represented by the city of Babylon, 
is what is thus named and described. For when the subject is 
opened, it is said to the true church, " Thou shalt take up this 
proverb against the king of fiabylonf" and towards the conclu- 
sion it is said, "I will rise up against them, saith the Lord, and cut 
off from Babylon the name and remnant, son and nephew, saith 
the Lord J," &c. Thus it is plain, that Lucifer is a personification 
of the kind of lust of domination represented by Babylon : and 
that this is the lust of obtaining dominion by using spiritual things 
as instruments for that purpose, and of arrogating authority over 
the souls of men as well as their bodies, is evident from Lucifer's 
being described as saying, "I will ascend into heaven, I will 
exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will be like the Most 
High.»§ 

* Isa. xiv. 12, 13, 14. f Ver. 4. % Ver. 22. 

§ It should also be observed, that the words in our translation, " the mount 
of the congregation," are better given by Bishop Lowth, " the mount of the 
divine presence:" for the original term translated " congregation," though it is 
expressive of meeting together, does not, in this use, merely mean the assembling 
together of the people, but the meeting together of God and man. The taber- 
nacle, and afterwards the temple, were called the tabernacle and temple, not, as 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 205 

We will pass on to Daniel, who, writing his prophecies at the 
place itself, whither he had been carried captive, treats largely of 
Babylon, and consequently of that species of the lust of dominion 
of which Babylon was a type. Nebuchadnezzar relates a dream, 
in which he says, " I saw, and behold a tree in the midst of the 
earth, and the height thereof was great. The tree grew and was 
strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight 
thereof to the end of all the earth."* In the interpretation of 
this dream, Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar, " The tree which thou 
sawest, whose height reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to 
all the earth, — it is thou, O king, that art grown and become 
strong : for thy greatness is grown and reached unto heaven, and 
thy dominion unto the ends of the earth." f Nebuchadnezzar, as 
being the king of Babylon, bears the same typical representation as 
Babylon itself: and here we find the circumstance of reaching to 
heaven, so often mentioned when Babylon is treated-of, again in- 
troduced ; because it is a phrase expressive of the claiming of 
dominion over the souls of men ; whilst the reaching to the ends of 
the earth as plainly implies the pretension to universal dominion 
over their bodies. The blind presumption which accompanies such 
pretensions, is represented by Belshazzar's impious feast, which 
was interrupted by the hand writing on the wall ; on which occa- 
sion it is related, that " they brought the golden vessels that were 
taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusa- 
lem ; and the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines, 
drank in them ; they drank wine, and praised the gods of gold and 
silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone $ " by which was 
represented the profanation of which those are guilty who are 
principled in that love of domination of which Babylon and her 
kings were types, in consequence of their assuming the appearance 
of sanctity, and making all the holy doctrines and rites of the 

in our version, of the congregation, but of meeting together, because in them the 
divine presence was manifested, and God was considered to meet with man : 
and the same title was thence transferred to mount Zion, on which the temple 
stood. When therefore Lucifer declares his purpose of establishing himself on 
the mount of meeting together, the meaning is, that he, as representing the prin- 
ciple which we have described, would interpose himself between God and 
man, to become the self-constituted organ of dispensing the divine behests to 
mankind. 

• Dan. iv. 10, 11. \ Ver. 20, 22. % Chap. v. 3, 4. 



206 PLEXAUY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

church minister to the gratification of their insane lust. The same 
assumption of authority iu sacred affairs was represented by the 
command of Nebuchadnezzar, that all people, nations, and lan- 
guages, should fall down and worship the golden image that he 
had set up, under pain of being cast into a burning fiery furnace*: 
and the pretensions to a power absolutely divine are appropriately 
expressed by the decree of Darius, when he had obtained posses- 
sion of Babylon, " that whosoever, for the space of thirty days, 
should ask a petition of God or man, save of the king only, should 
be cast into the den of lions." f 

Many other testimonies to the character of Babylon might be 
adduced ; but these will surely be sufficient to evince, that the lust 
of dominion, when it seeks to obtain its end by prostituting to its 
purpose the doctrines and all the sanctities of religion, is what is 
signified by Babylon, or to represent which, Babylon, as a suitable 
type, is employed in the Divine Word. To ascertain, then, whether 
Babylon, in the Apocalypse, bears any allusion to the Romish 
Church, it is only necessary to ask, Has the Eomish Church aimed 
at such dominion, and by such means ? The answer is to be read 
in every page of the history of Europe, during the ages that pre- 
ceded the Keformation of Luther .{ 

* Chap. iii. 4, 5, 6. f Ch. vi. 7. 

% History will discover to us the practice of the Romish Church ; the princi- 
ples from which the practice proceeded are well brought together in a recent 
popular work : take the following as a specimen : " According to the Canons, 
the Pope was as far above all kings, as the sun is greater than the moon. He 
was King of kings, and Lord of Lords, though he subscribed himself the Ser- 
vant of sen-ants. His power it was which was intended, when it was said to 
the Prophet Jeremiah, ' Behold, I have this day set thee over nations and king- 
doms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to 
build, and to plant.' It was an incomprehensible and infinite power, because 
• great is the Lord, and great is his power, and of his greatness there is no end.* 
The immediate and sole rule of the whole world belonged to him, by natural 
moral, and divine right; all authority depending upon him. As supreme King, he 
might impose taxes upon all Christians ; and the Popes declared it was to be 
held as a point necessary to salvation, that every human creature is subject to 
the Roman Pontiff. That he might lawfully depose kings, was averred to be 
so certain a doctrine, that it could only be denied by madmen, or through the 
instigation of the Devil ; it was more pernicious and intolerable to deny it, 
than to err concerning the Sacraments. — All nations and kingdoms were under 
the Pope's jurisdiction, for to him God had delivered over the power and do- 
minion in heaven and earth. — The Spouse of the Church [as he was called] 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 207 

Tims we see that the true reason, why Babylon, in the Revela- 
tion, is mentioned as a symbol of the corrupt Eomish Church, is, 
because the governing powers of that church have been inflamed 

was Vice-God : men were commanded to bow at his name, as at the name of 
Christ ; the proudest sovereigns waited upon him like menials, led his horse 
by the bridle, and held his stirrup while he alighted : and there were ambas- 
sadors, who prostrated themselves before him, saying, thou, that takest away 
the sins of the world, have mercy upon us ! 

" The advocates of the Papal power proclaimed, —that all pontifical decrees 
ought for ever to be observed by all men, like the Word of God, to be received 
as if they came from the mouth of St. Peter himself, and held like canonical 
Scripture. — Even this monstrous proposition has been advanced, that although 
the Catholic Faith teaches all virtue to be good, and all vice evil ; nevertheless, 
if the Pope, through error, should enjoin vices to be committed, and prohibit 
virtues, the Church would be bound to believe that vices were good and virtues 
evil, and would sin in conscience were it to believe otherwise. He could change 
the nature of things, and make injustice justice. Nor was it possible that he 
should be amenable to any secular power, for he had been called God by Con- 
stantine, and God was not to be judged by man : under God, the salvation of 
the faithful depended on him ; and the commentators even gave him the blas- 
phemous appellation of our Lord God the Pope ! It was disputed in the schools, 
— whether he did not, as God, participate both natures with Christ; and 
whether he was not more merciful than Christ, inasmuch as he delivered souls 
from the pains of purgatory, whereas we did not read that this had ever been 
done by our Saviour. Lastly, it was affirmed that he might do things unlaw- 
ful, and thus could do more than God!" 

Nor were the inferior clergy left without a handsome participation in this 
plenitude of power. It having been determined that the sacramental bread 
was changed, when consecrated^ into the real body of the Lord ; it was held 
that " the Priest, when he performed this stupendous function of his ministry, 
had before his eyes, and held in his hands, the Maker of heaven and earth ; 
and the inference which they deduced from so blasphemous an assumption was, 
that the Clergy were not to be subject to any secular authority, seeing they 
could create God their creator! Let it not be supposed," says our author, 
" that the statement is in the slightest part exaggerated ; it is delivered faith- 
fully in their own words." — Southey's "Book of the Church" Vol i. ch. 10. 

As a further sample of the manner in which the Romish hierarchy, in the 
days of their prosperity, profaned the Scriptures by applying them to support 
their extravagant pretensions, take the following extract of a letter from Saint 
Thomas Becket to the Pope : " It is by forbearance on our side that the powers 
of the world grow insolent, and kings become tyrants, so as to believe, that no 
rights, no privileges, are to be left to the Church, unless at their pleasure. But 
blessed is he who taketh and dasheth their little ones against the stones ! For 
if Judah does not, according to the command of the law, root out the Canaanite, 
he will grow up against him, to be perpetually his enemy and his scourge."— 
Ibid. Vol I. ch. 8. 



2 OS PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

with the lust of universal dominion over both the souls and bodies 
of men, and have profaned the most holy things by mating them 
subservient to that object ; and because of this principle, whether 
existing in the Eomish Church or in any other, Babylon, in the 
Scriptures, is constantly the symbol. 

(2.) We have examined at some length the signification of 
Babylon, this affording a key to the whole prediction. The cir- 
cumstances predicted of this personification of Babylon, in the 
verses quoted above, will be found, when explained, to be in per- 
fect harmony with the signification of the woman herself; and as 
the analogical reasons of their signification are for the most part 
pretty obvious, they need not detain us long. 

The appearance of the harlot was extremely splendid : she was 
arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with precious stones and 
pearls, and held in her hand a golden cup. It is generally sup- 
posed, that these things are mentioned, to describe the magnificence 
and splendour of the Roman Catholic worship, and the super-royal 
grandeur of the Papal Court ; and, in their literal sense, the words 
will very well bear this application. But this is not the spiritual 
meaning of the terms ; which properly imply, that that church 
assumes, externally, an appearance as if she were the true bride ot 
the Divine Bridegroom, decorated with all the spiritual elegancies 
which ought to distinguish the true church, whilst, internally re- 
garded, the opposite of this is her state. Garments are always 
mentioned in reference to the truths possessed by the wearer ; as 
may appear from the passage of the Psalms noticed above, in which 
light, the proper emblem of the purest truth, is ascribed to the 
Lord as his garment. The colours and other ornaments of the 
garments, express the quality of the truth, of which the wearer 
enjoys, or boasts, the possession. Red colours bear an acknow- 
ledged analogy to fire and warmth, which as plainly answer, by a 
spiritual analogy to the principle of love : hence the purple in 
which this woman was arrayed, being an extremely deep and 
intense red *, represented the appearance which the Popish religion 
assumes, of possessing, from the truths of the Word, the highest 
order of good, being that which in the Scriptures is denominated 
the love of the Lord ; and the scarlet, which is a bright red mixed 
with flame-colour, and reflecting a great deal of light, represented 
* This was the colour called purple in the Scriptures. 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 20'J 

the appearance of possessing, from the same source, the highest 
order of truth, being that which proceeds from, and leads to, love 
to the Lord. By gold is here specifically meant that species of 
good which the Scriptures call love towards the neighbour : and by 
precious stones and pearls, on account of the sparkling light which 
they emit, are signified specific points of knowledge on heavenly 
subjects. By the golden cup in the woman's hand, this being a 
vessel for containing liquids, is signified the doctrine of that re- 
ligion, which is " the wine of her fornication," with which " the 
inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk* :" it is said to be 
a golden cup, to intimate that her doctrine is made outwardly to 
appear as if it were founded in goodness : but by its being said to 
be " full of abominations and filthiness," is signified, that such 
appearance is merely assumed to ensnare the well-disposed, whilst 
in reality every good and every truth in that religion are adulterated 
and profaned. f 

But John saw the true character of the Eomish Religion re- 
vealed in the name written on the woman's forehead : " Mystery, 
Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the 
earth." The name is called " Mystery," because it discloses that 
which the Babylonians wish to conceal. When we are apprised 
that by Babylon is signified the lust of ruling over all mankind, 
and even over heaven itself, we need not wonder that it is called 
" Babylon the great ;*' for none think themselves so great as those 
who are under the influence of this self-magnifying appetite. And 
this will explain, as we shall see presently, why Babylon personified 
is called " the Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth." 
It is generally admitted that the spiritual signification of adultery, 
is idolatry : for it is mentioned in Scripture in a variety of places 
where the natural crime cannot be meant. Thus Jehovah says by 
the prophet, " And I saw, when for all the causes whereby back- 
sliding Israel committed adultery, I had put her away, and given 
her a bill of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, 
but went and played the harlot also :" and in the verse following 
it is said, that she " committed adultery with stones and with 
stocks." % Here, Israel and Judah are regarded as the wives of the 

* Verse 2. 

f For a sample of the abominations and filthiness with which the cup of 
Popish doctrine is full, see the Note above, p. 206. 
X Jer. iii. 8, 9, 



210 PLENAEY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

Lord ; consequently, the adultery with which they are reproached, 
is their infidelity to him, which, by the clearest analogy, is the 
adultery of the Church : stones and stocks are mentioned, for idols 
made of stone and idols made of wood ; and to Commit adultery 
with these, is to turn from the worship of the Lord to the worship 
of idols. And has not Rome been guilty of this sin ? How many 
idols has she literally set up, to share with the Lord the worship 
of her disciples, or to draw them entirely away from him, who is 
the true husband of the Church ! 

It is necessary, however, to observe, that it is possible to 
be spiritually a harlot, and yet not to offer outward worship 
to any but the true God : for this is also done by those who 
pervert the genuine truths of the Divine Word, applying them 
in such a manner as to favour any sentiment which is not true and 
good ; especially when they are so misapplied as to seem to con- 
firm any doctrine that has nothing for its end but the gratification 
of selfish and corrupt inclinations. The proper partner of truth is 
goodness, and the proper partner of goodness is truth ; but when 
an unnatural union is effected between truth and evil, or good and 
a false persuasion, it is adulterated and defiled. And this is per- 
petually done by spiritual Babylon. For as Babylon represents 
the love of domineering over others by means of the spiritualities 
of the church; and as the genuine doctrines and truths of the 
church are diametrically opposite to such a lust ; they cannot be 
applied to promote its purposes, till they are quite wrested from 
their genuine import, and utterly perverted: and so to pervert 
them is to adulterate and profane them, thus, to apply them to the 
purposes of spiritual adultery. And as the lust of dominion, signi- 
fied by Babylon, is perpetually doing this ; therefore is she called, 
with the strictest propriety, <c the Mother of harlots and abomina- 
tions of the earth."* 

But the Babylonian harlot is described as guilty of another 
vice: she is said to be drunken, and that too with a more 
maddening beverage than wine; for she was "drunken with 

* Some examples of the adulteration, by Babylon, of the truths of Scripture, 
by applying them to support her blasphemous pretensions, occur in the Note 
above, p. 206. It is also well known what a superstructure of imposture she 
has erected upon the text relating to the giving of the keys to Peter, combined 
with that in which Jesus Christ says, "All power is given to me in heaven and 
in earth." 



IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 211 

the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs 
of Jesus.'* To be drunken, is a phrase sometimes used in 
the Scriptures, as in Ezekiel's address to the fowls and beasts, 
merely to express abundance ; but when, as is more common, in- 
toxication is implied, its meaning will appear from observing the 
spiritual analogy of that state. As man, by natural ebriety, sinks 
from a rational being to a merely animal one, and yet generally 
thinks himself, at such times, more rational than those whose intel- 
lects are undisturbed ; so the man who is spiritually intoxicated, 
though he may retain the faculty of natural rationality, is deprived 
of intelligence in spiritual subjects, and is, in regard to these, in a 
manner insane ; yet he, also, commonly exults in his madness, and 
thinks himself wiser than others. Ebriety, then, in Sacred Writ, 
denotes insanity with respect to spiritual subjects, and an exulting 
profession of false sentiments for true ones. But why is the 
Woman's intoxication ascribed to her drinking the blood of the 
saints and martyrs of Jesus ? This is commonly supposed to refer 
to the barbarous persecutions and cruel murders which have stained 
the hands of the Komish hierarchy : but though the literal sense 
is here also very applicable, something beyond this is implied by 
the expressions. It is to be remembered, that the word " martyr" 
is Greek, and means a witness ; as the word " saint " is from the 
Latin, and means a holy one. The holy ones of Scripture, are 
those whose lives are purified and made holy, by their reception, in 
affection, of the genuine truths of the Word; and, abstractedly 
they are those truths themselves ; and the witnesses of Jesus are 
those who, by the same means, are enabled to bear the testimony 
which their name implies ; and, abstractedly, they are those truths 
of the Word which point to the Lord and unfold his true character. 
To shed the blood, then, of the saints or holy ones, is to destroy, 
by false interpretations, those truths of the Divine Word which 
lead immediately to holiness of life ; and to shed the blood of the 
martyrs or witnesses of Jesus is to destroy, by the same means, 
those truths which lead to the correct and saving knowledge of 
the Lord. This has been done in abundance by the perverse ex- 
positions of the Eomish Church; and in proportion as she has 
done it, and has drunk the blood thus shed, — that is, has imbibed, 
not the pure truth of the Word, but the most wilful violations of 
it, which is the signification of blood when shed unlawfully, — her 



212 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

spiritual intoxication has increased; till she has boasted herself 
infallible, and has exulted in the persuasion that her proud preten- 
sions would be admitted for ever ; till she has said in her heart, 
" I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow."* 

In all the particulars, then, of the description of the harlot of 
Babylon^ we find an exact delineation of the corruptions which 
take place, when the lust of dominion intrudes itself into the 
churchj and applies all the sanctities of religion to its own ag- 
grandizement : and because this kas been the case, to a most de- 
plorable extent, in the Church of Kome, her portrait is, in this 
description, so readily to be discerned. 

These specimens are what it was deemed necessary to offer, to 
evince the applicability of the Science of Analogies, as a Rule of in- 
terpretation, to that part of the Word of God which is delivered in the 
style of prophecy. As before remarked, the brevity which it has 
been necessary to consult, has rendered it impossible to give the 
full proof which might be desired of the meaning of every symbol 
which we have had to consider ; yet enough has perhaps been ad- 
vanced, to shew that the truth of every interpretation which has 
been offered is at least highly probable, and to render it morally 
certain, that the system of Analogy between natural things and 
spiritual, affords the true and only key for the decyphering of the 
language of the prophetic Scriptures. The principles laid down 
at the beginning of this Lecture, on the character which must 
necessarily belong to the Divine Style of Writing, must be borne 
in mind. If, as stated above, in a written revelation from God, 
the Divine Truth must clothe itself with ideas and images taken 
from the world of nature before it could be presented to man ; and 
if the Divine Style of Writing must thus follow the Law of that 
Analogy which indissolubly connects natural objects and ideas with 
such as are spiritual and divine : — it will follow, that the spiritual 
and divine wisdom which such a revelation must contain within it, 
could only be understood by a right application to it of this Law. 
And if on an application of this Law to the books called the Holy 
Scriptures, it should be found that they exhibit a coherent series 
of spiritual and divine instruction ; it will follow further, that the 
Scriptures are such a revelation of Divine Truth presented to man 
* Chap, xviii. 7. 






IV.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 213 

in natural language j that they are the Divine Speech, or Divine 
"Word, which has emanated from the bosom of Deity into this 
lowest sphere of creation. In regard to the prophetical parts of 
the sacred code, it is hoped, that their title to this character has 
now, in some measure, been evinced ; and if so, the claims of the 
Holy Scriptures to Plenary Divine Inspiration, will, so far, have 
been established. 



214 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF LECT.] 



LECTURE V. 

PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS CONTINUED. 

I. Applicability of the Law which governs the Relation between natural objects and 
spiritual and divine essences, — or of the Science of Analogies, — as a Rule for the inter- 
pretation of the Historical Parts of the Divine Word. 1, Sentiments of Biblical Critics, 
and admissions of Expositors, on the typical nature of the Scripture History. 2. Neces- 
sity of making the system uniform. II. Just Ideas of the nature and uses of the 
Israelitish Dispensation necessary to the right apprehension of the Israelitish History. 
IIL Examples of the light which results from the application of the Rule of Analogy 
between natural things aud spiritual to the Scripture Histories : Instances selected : 
1. The miraculous capture of Jericho (Josh, vi.) ; 2. Jephthah and his vow (Judges xL) ; 
3. The combat of David and Goliath (1 Sam. xvii.); 4. The circumstances attending the 
Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, IV. Examples of the light which results from the appli-r 
cation of the Rule to the Ceremonial Precepts of the Divine Word ; Instances selected : 
1. The Sacrifices in general; 2. The prohibition of various kinds of meats (Lev. xi.) ; 
3. The Law of the Nazarite (Num. vi.) ; 4. Baptism and the Lord's Supper ; which were 
instituted under the Christian Dispensation as an Epitome of the whole Ceremonial 
Law. 

Having, in our last Lecture, endeavoured to shew what the truly 
Divine Style of Writing must necessarily be, and to evince that the 
Law of that Analogy which connects natural objects and ideas 
with such as are spiritual and divine, must afford the Rule for its 
interpretation ; we inferred, that if the books which claim to be the 
Word of God can be decyphered by the application to them of this 
Rule, so as to yield, in every part, a coherent sense, worthy of a 
Divine Author; this will prove that they are composed in the 
Divine Style of Writing, and that they must have been given by a 
Plenary Divine Inspiration. The theorem which we meant to pro- 
pose may perhaps be more distinctly stated thus : A Divine Com- 
position must be written in a peculiar Divine Style : The Divine 
Style must follow the Law of that Analogy, which, as Was before 
proved, connects natural objects and ideas with such as are spiritual 
and divine ; being that by which the outward universe was firs 
brought into existence, and by which it is still kept in connexion 
with its Divine Source, and thus is preserved: Every writing 
which is composed with undeviating regularity according to the 
Law of this Analogy, is composed in the truly Divine Style : Con- 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 215 

sequentlv, every such writing is a Divine Composition. This then 
must be true of the books commonly named the Word of God, if, 
on applying to their interpretation the Law of Analogy, they are 
found to be written according to it. 

This inference will not be weakened by the fact, that other com- 
positions may have been framed, by persons well acquainted with 
the Analogy of which we are speaking, in which the same Law, to 
a great extent, has been observed : for the knowledge of analogies 
in uninspired writers can never be so complete, as to govern the 
selection of every expression ; whereas, in the divine afflatus of real 
inspiration, every expression, to the minutest particle, — to every 
jot and tittle*, — woidd flow in agreement with this Law: and this 
is the case in the books of the Divine Word, Uninspired writers 
might frame compositions, which, in their leading points, shoidd 
contain a spiritual sense ; but not such as should carry a spiritual 
sense in one unbroken series throughout. But even supposing it 
possible for science to emulate the productions of inspiration with 
such exactness, that no difference could be discerned between them; 
this would not tend to invabdate the claims of the books which 
are called the Word of God; since, whatever such science might 
be capable of effecting, there is no reason for supposing that the 
writers of those books possessed it. Moses, indeed, who was 
educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, might have some 
knowledge of it : but it could be shewn, that though it continued 
to be studied among some of the eastern nations, it was not known 
to the Jews, who were always a gross and ignorant people. Even 
if the prophets knew any thing of the science, it is certain that 
their writings were not artificially composed by it; they being 
evidently unpremeditated, spontaneous effusions, not the laboured 
productions of study. But it is perfectly clear, that when the 
books of the New Testament were written, no remains of the 
science were extant among the Jews ; and as the style of writing 
composed of analogies appears in all its vigour in the latest of 
those books, the Revelation of John, it evidently is there the purely 
divine style of writing, which nothing but inspiration could have 
imparted to the writer. Our inference, then, remains unimpeach- 
able ; that if, on an application to the books which claim to be the 
Word of God, of the Rule of interpretation afforded by the Analogy 
• Matt v. 18. 



216 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

between natural things and spiritual, we every where obtain a co- 
herent sense worthy of a Divine Author, those books had a Divine 
Author, and are written by a Plenary Divine Inspiration. 

I. In our last Lecture, we endeavoured to give some idea of the 
mode of applying the rule of spiritual Analogy to the decyphering 
of the prophetical parts of the Scriptures. As introductory to this, 
we first confirmed, by the testimony of authors in high esteem, the 
general fact ; that the prophecies of Scripture do include a meaning 
beyond that which appears immediately on the surface,-r-that they 
contain a double sense, the one applying to things natural and 
temporal, the other to things spiritual and eternal. We have seen, 
indeed, that the fact is so evident,— that it so openly forces itself 
upon the notice of a serious student of the prophetic writers, — as 
to be admitted by many who are by no means disposed to estimate 
too highly the character of the Word of God. We have even found, 
that learned men have laid down a Eule for the interpretation of 
the prophetic writings, which proceeds upon the same principle as 
that which, we are endeavouring to prove, is the true Eule for the 
interpretation of tbe whole of the sacred Scriptures. The Rule 
which they have adopted is that of Analogy or Mutual Relation ; 
only their analogies, being between certain natural things and 
certain other natural things, thus between things not sufficiently 
separate in their nature, are in some respects arbitrary and uncer- 
tain ; whereas the analogies which we would point out, being be- 
tween outward forms and inward essences, — between things essen- 
tially different, and yet so connected that the lower absolutely 
draw their origin from the higher, — are fixed and certain; they 
are founded in the unalterable relations of things, and are as im- 
mutable as the laws of nature ; of which, indeed, they constitute 
a part. 

Having seen that the Prophetic Writings may be consistently 
interpreted by the application of this rule, and are thus proved to 
be written by a plenary inspiration ; we are now to proceed to try 
its applicability to the historical parts of the Scriptures. 

1. The prophetical Scriptures form a species of Divine Writing, 
in which the mind more readily expects to meet with mysteries 
beyond what the letter exhibits. Laying out of the consideration 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 217 

its divine origin, we should not so naturally look for such mysteries 
in the plain language of history, of which a still greater portion of 
the Word of God consists: and yet in many parts even of the 
plainest of these histories, a further reference to things of a spiri- 
tual nature is so obviously presented, that unless the mind be for- 
tified against the admission of it by previous confirmations, it can 
hardly fail to see it as soon as it is pointed out. Accordingly, I 
find that the typical or symbolic character of many of the actions 
recorded, and of the persons mentioned, in the historical parts of 
the "Word of God, is acknowledged by nearly all who receive the 
Scriptures as containing, in any degree, a divine Eevelation. As 
we have before stated the sentiments of Biblical Critics on the 
double sense of Divine Prophecy, we will here deliver their views 
of the typical nature of Scripture History. 

(1.) We will begin with those parts of Scripture History which 
record divine miracles j there being a general tendency m the 
Commentators, to admit, in the miracles, a typical representation. 

In regard to these, the Eev. Mr. Home, whose work, as being 
the most recent, I have repeatedly quoted, lays this down as one of 
the rules of Scripture interpretation: "Although the design of 
miracles is to mark the divine interposition, yet when perusing the 
miracles recorded in the Sacred Writings, we are not to lose sight 
of the moral and spiritual instruction concealed under them : and 
especially under the miracles performed by our Saviour.' 5 * This 
he confirms by this remark of the Eev. W. Jones. " All his [our 
Saviour's] miracles were undoubtedly so many testimonies that 
he was sent from God : but they were much more than this ; for 
they were all of such a kind, and attended with such circumstances, 
as give us an insight into the spiritual state of man, and the great 
work of his salvation." This is a very important fact, and worthy 
of the most careful attention : it also leads to very important con- 
clusions ; since, by establishing the symbolic character of some of 
the historical transactions recorded in the Word of God, it naturally 
leads us to expect to find the same character in others ; at least, if 
the miracles of the New Testament are clearly seen to be fraught 
with spiritual instruction, it will be very difficult to deny those of 
the Old to be equally replete with divine wisdom. We will there- 
fore state a summary view of the purport of some of the miracles 
* Introduction to the Scriptures, Vol. ii. Pt. ii. Ch. iv. § ii. 

10 



218 PLENATvX INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

of Jesus Christ as offered by Dr. Jortin, — a writer whom we have 
had occasion to quote before, and who holds a high station among 
the sober and learned divines of the Church of England. 

This author considers the spiritual import of the miracles as 
strengthening the argument which they afford for the truth of 
Christianity : thus, after having made on them, in reference to this 
argument, several remarks, he says, " To these I shall add some 
proofs which are more remote from common observation, and 
which perhaps have not been sufficiently considered. — The 
miracles of Christ were prophecies at the same time: they were 
such miracles as in a particular manner suited his character : they 
were significant emblems of his designs, and figures aptly re- 
presenting the benefits to be conferred by him upon mankind ; 
and they had in them, if we may so speak, a spiritual sense. So 
much may be urged in behalf of this interpretation of them, as 
shall probably secure it from being ranked among those fanciful 
expositions which are generally slighted by wise men." Proceed- 
ing, then, to state his view of the Saviour's miracles, he says, 
n He cast out evil spirits, who were permitted to exert themselves 
at that time, and to possess many persons : by this he shewed 
that he came to destroy the empire of Satan, and seemed to fore- 
tell, that wherever his doctrines should prevail, idolatory and vice 
should be put to flight. — He gave sight to the blind — a miracle 
well suiting him who brought immortality to light, and taught 
truth to an ignorant world. Lucem cal'ujanti reddidit in undo , 
applied by Q. Curtius to a Roman emperor, can be strictly applied 
to Christ, and to him alone. No prophet ever did this miracle 
before him, as none ever made the religious discoveries which he 
made. Our Saviour himself leads us to this observation, and sets 
his miracle in the same view, saying, upon that occasion, ' I am the 
light of the world : I am come into this world, that they which see 
not, might see.' He cured the deaf, and the dumb, and the lame, 
and the infirm, and cleansed the lepers, and healed all manner of 
sicknesses, to shew at the same time that he was the physician of 
souls, which have their diseases corresponding in some manner to 
those of the body, and are deaf and dumb, and impotent, and pa- 
ralytic, and leprous, in a spiritual sense. He fed the hungry mul- 
titudes by a miracle ; which aptly represented his heavenly doctrine, 
and the gospel preached to the poor, and which he himself so ex* 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 219 

plains, saying, ' I am the living bread which came down from 
heaven : if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever.' The 
fig-tree, which, with all its fair appearance was destitute of fruit, 
and died away at his rebuke, was plainly a figure of the Pharisaical 
religion, which was only outside shew ; and of the rejection and 
fall of the Jewish nation. — He raised the dead, — a miracle pecu- 
liarly suiting him, who at the last day should call forth all man- 
kind to appear before him ; and therefore when he raised Lazarus, 
he uttered those majestic words : c I am the resurrection and the 
life : He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he 
live.' He performed some miracles upon persons that were not of 
his own nation, and it was so ordered by Divine Providence, that 
these persons, as the Centurion, the Syro-phcenician woman, and 
the Samaritan leper, should shew a greater degree of faith and of 
gratitude than the Jews to whom the same favours were granted. 
This was an indication, that the Gospel would be more readily re- 
ceived by the gentiles than by the Jews."* — So, the two states of 
the Gadarene demoniac, while under the influence of Satanic pos- 
session, and when restored to his right mind, are explained by Mr. 
Jonesf, as respectively representing the two states of man, first, 
while living in a course of sinful practice ; and, secondly, when 
' renewed in the spirit of his mind ;' listening to the precepts of 
the gospel, and walking in holiness and righteousness. 

Now surely it must be allowed, that the analogies here pointed 
out, though not always precisely such as a systematic study of 
spiritual analogies would dictate, are yet so plain and unquestion- 
able, as to satisfy every one that the miracles wrought by Jesus 
Christ were not merely intended for the transient benefit of a few 
persons, in a single country, at a certain moment in the history of 
the world, — nor yet merely to stand recorded as instances of the 
divine power of Him who wrought them : but to exhibit lessons 
of perpetual instruction to weak and erring man, — to lead him to 
reflect on his infirmities and deficiencies ; and to point out where 
he may be relieved under them, by guiding him to the Omnipotent 
Physician of souls, the mighty Dispenser of spiritual nourish- 
ment. 

* Jortin's Remarks, &c. Vol. i. p. 255 to 261 ; (Ed. 1805,) where other 
examples are given. 

f Cited by Home, as above. 



220 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

(2.) But that the historical parts of the Word of God contain a 
reference to spiritual and divine subjects in other instances, as well 
as when delivering the account of miracles, is also universally 
acknowledged. Thus it is generally conceded, that the Scriptures 
of the Old Testament abound with types of things brought to light 
in the New. Of these, the writers on Scripture interpretation say 
there are three sorts, viz. legal types, prophetical types, and his- 
torical types : and the latter are thus described by Home* from 
the works of Huet and Macknight : " Historical types are the 
characters, actions, and fortunes, of some eminent persons recorded 
in the Old Testament, so ordered by Divine Providence as to be 
exact prefigurations of the characters, actions, and fortunes of 
future persons who should arise under the Gospel dispensation. 
In some instances, the persons whose characters and actions pre- 
figured future events, were declared by Jehovah himself to be 
typical, long before the events which they prefigured came to pass. 
But in other instances, many persons really typical were not 
known to be such, until after the things which they typified had 
actually happened, — they are consequently ascertained to be suck 
by expositors and interpreters of the Scriptures, by fair probabi- 
lities agreeable to the analogy of faith. The most remarkable 
typical persons and things mentioned in the Old Testament," he 
adds, " are Adam, Abel, Noah, Melchizedec, Isaac, the ram sacri- 
ficed by Abraham, Joseph, the pillar of fire, the manna, the rock in 
the desert whence water flowed, the scape goat, the brazen serpent, 
Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Sampson, Samuel, David, Solomon, Jonah, 
and Zerubbabel." And he concludes with saying, " It would 
swell this chapter into a commentary upon very numerous passages 
of Scripture, were we to attempt to shew how clearly these cha- 
racters, &c, correspond with their great antitype the Lord Jesus 
Christ. 55 * 

To this we will add the following remarks, on " the correspon- 
dences of types and antitypes," from that very eminent author, Dr. 
Clarke : " The analogies between the paschal lamb, and the Lamb 
of God slain from the foundation of the world ; between the Egyp- 
tian bondage, and the tyranny of sin ; between the baptism of the 

* I do not here concern myself with the distinction which this author makes 
between a type and a symbol. 
t Vol. ii. Pt. ii. Ch. viii. § ii. 3. 



y,] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 221 

Israelites in the sea, and in the cloud, and the baptism of Chris- 
tians : bettceen the passage through the wilderness, and through 
the present world ; between Jesus [Joshua] bringing the people into 
the promised land, and Jesus Christ being the Captain of salva- 
tion to believers; between the sabbath of rest promised to the 
people of God in the earthly Canaan, and the eternal rest promised 
in the heavenly Canaan ; bettceen the liberty granted from the time 
of the death of the high priest, to him that had fled into a city 
of refuge, and the redemption purchased by the death of Christ ; 
bettceen the high priest entering into the holy place every year with 
the blood of others, and Christ's once entering with his own blood 
into heaven itself, to appear in the presence of God for us : these, 
I say, and innumerable other analogies, betwem the shadows of 
things to come, of good things to come, the shadows of heavenly 
things, the figures for the time then present, patterns of things in 
the heavens, and the heavenly things themselves, cannot, without 
the force of strong prejudice, be conceived to have happened by mere 
chance, without any foresight and design. There are no such 
analogies, much less such series of analogies, found in the books of 
mere enthusiastic writers living in such remote ages from each other. 
It is much more credible, and reasonable to suppose, what St. Paul 
affirms, that these things were our examples; and that, in the 
uniform course of God's government of the world, all these things 
happened to them of old for examples, and that they are written for 
our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come : 
And hence arises that aptness of similitude, in the application of 
several legal performances to the morality of the gospel, that it can 
hardly be supposed not to have been originally intended. 1 "* 

It is to be observed, that Clarke and Jortin adduce their analo- 
gies, as aifording strong evidence of the divine inspiration of the 
Word of God : if such is their tendency, when regarded as the 
result of arbitrary appointment rather than as the effects of a re- 
gular and universal Law ; how strong indeed does their evidence 
become, when it is seen that the'Iatter is their true character, and 
that this Law governs not only the analogies noticed by these 
writers, but every part of the Sacred Scriptures ! — that, in fact, the 
Scriptures consist of analogies throughout, and such as do not de- 
pend for their meaning on simple appointment, or for their inter- 

* Clarke's Evid. of Nat. and Rev. Relig, apud Jortin, Vol. i. p. 151. 



222 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

pretation upon conjecture, but are inherent in the nature of things, 
and will abide the scrutiny of scientific investigation ! 

2. These large admissions and strong assertions on the subject 
of types, by the most esteemed writers on Scripture interpretation, 
are amply sufficient for the purpose for which we have quoted 
them : — they prove that the fact is in many instances unquestion- 
able * It is true that modern critics take great pains to limit and 
circumscribe their admissions on this subject. Some of them tell 
us, that although those things and persons mentioned in the Old 
Testament, whose tvpical character is expressly pointed out in the 
New, must have it allowed them, yet we are not to look for 
symbols in those things and persons, whose signification the New- 
Testament writers have not explained. The late Bishop of Cal- 
cutta, for instance, whose observations on the spiritual sense of 
Scripture we cited in our second Lecture, while he contends for its 
necessity, restricts it thus : " Against the doctrine of a twofold 
explanation, what is to be urged ? I know of no objection worthy 
of regard, unless it be said, that the door will thus be opened to 
the caprice of mystics and enthusiasts. But it is not for unautho- 
rized applications that I contend ; it is only for those which have 
been made by Christ or Ms apostles." f But who does not see the 
futility of such a limitation ? The New Testament must have been 
made a much larger volume than it is, were it designed to unfold 
every particular spiritual reference, contained in every particular 
part of the Old Testament, where a meaning beyond the letter 
is to be allowed. Had not the argument of the Epistle to the 
Galatians led the apostle to mention the allegorical character of 
the history of Ha'gar and Sarah, — the introduction of which is 
purely incidental, and may almost be called accidental, — many 
critics would have decried the deduciug of such a meaning from 
such a circumstance as an instance of unfounded presumption. 
So, Melchizedec is now one of the persons in the Old Testament, 
whose typical character is most cordially admitted : but had not 
the argument of the Epistle to the Hebrews incidentally led the 
writer to mention it, we must have concluded, upon these princi- 

* Ad propositum satis est, etiam in hoc sapientes vestros in aliquem modum 
nobiscum consonare. Mm. Felix. 

| Middleton on the Greek Article, p. 587. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 223 

pies, that it did not exist. Indeed all the notices in the New 
Testament of the types in the Old, are introduced in the same inci- 
dental manner ; and they are clearly mentioned, not to inform us, 
that although those persons and things had a typical reference, this 
does not apply to any others ; but to instruct us, that such is the 
character of the Old Testament history in general. There cannot 
be a plainer inference than this : that if some persons and things 
mentioned in the Old Testament have a symbolic signification, so 
have others : and if it was not intended that we should make such 
an inference, what an unpardonable omission was it in the Apostles 
and Evangelists, when they cite passages from the Old Testament 
as having a spiritual signification, not to have guarded their quota- 
tions as our modern critics woidd do ! — not to have said to the 
reader, " Observe, this circumstance has a spiritual signification ; 
but no others are to be interpreted upon the same principle, but 
such as we have expressly explained ! " They, however, have not 
thus taken away the key of knowledge ; on the contrary, by ex- 
plaining the nature of the Holy Word in a few passages, they have 
given a key to the discovery of the whole. What they have ex- 
plicitly unfolded, must be intended as a sample of the rest. Ex 
pede Herculem. If the Divine Word contains a divine meaning in 
one passage, undoubtedly it contains a similar meaning in every 
other. Suppose a man were presented with a casket of jewels, a 
few of them being also laid upon the lid as a sample : but suppose 
that, instead of opening the casket in search of more, he should 
affirm that it was not made to open at all, but was merely a solid 
log of wood, only to be admired for the singular workmanship of 
the outside : should we not wonder at his rusticity, and his uncon- 
sciousness of the treasure he possessed ? Yet just such is the 
conduct of those, who, after seeing a few of the jewels of wisdom 
contained in the Divine Word brought to light by the Apostles, 
deny the letter to inclose any more. 

But while we regard such conduct as highly inconsistent, we 
do not mean to censure too severely those who have adopted it. 
They have done it to avoid what might prove a worse evil. The 
reason why mankind have become so unwilling to admit the typical 
and representative character of the historical parts of the Word of 
<jrod, is precisely the same as that which has made them so reluc- 
tant to allow universally the double sense of prophecy ; — the want 



224 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT 

of a Rule of interpretation sufficiently clear and decided to be ap- 
plicable to the whole ; and a laudable fear, without such a Eule, of 
indulging in uncertain conjecture. I trust however that the Eule 
which we have before laid down, arising out of the certain Relation 
existing in the nature of things between objects natural and spiri- 
tual, will be found equally capable of an application to this part of 
the subject. If so, all reasonable objection to the universally 
typical character of the Scripture history, will be removed. Bishop 
Middleton, we have seen, admits, that the opening of the door to 
capricious fancies, forms the only objection worthy of regard to the 
doctrine of a two-fold explanation ; remove then this danger, and 
such minds as his would surely hail with joy a system, which re- 
lieves them from the necessity of treating the Word of God itself 
as a capriciously framed production. 

But perhaps it will be said, Suppose we admit there to be a 
Relation of Analogy between all the productions of nature and 
certain moral, intellectual, or spiritual essences ; how will this prove 
that all the persons, cities, nations, and countries, with all the 
actions of men, and other contingent events, mentioned in the his- 
tory of the Bible, are equally symbolic of moral and spiritual 
things ? We answer, This was the result of a divine appointment, 
and overruling providence ; still having for its basis the natural 
relation between things natural and spiritual, which includes, as 
was shewn in our last Lecture, an analogy between the relations of 
mind and the relations of place. Thus, for the sake of giving a 
code of divine wisdom more completely than could otherwise have 
been effected, a certain people was selected to represent a true 
church : the country they inhabited was made to assume a similar 
representation; and on all the surrounding countries, as briefly 
stated in our last, a representation was also induced of the princi- 
ples connected with the former, more nearly or more remotely, and 
either in the way of subordination or of opposition. Who, for in- 
stance, does not see, that Egypt is a type of the natural state of 
man, and Canaan of his spiritual state, and that the forty-years' 
travels and troubles of the children of Israel in the wilderness, re- 
present the temptations and trials by which man passes from the 
one state to the other ? These types are so plain, that they have 
been recognized in all ages : but if the history of the Israelites, in 
this part of it, is symbolic, as it so certainly is, why may we not 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 225 

conclude all the other parts of it to be symbolic also ? It is the 
denial of this truth, and not the assertion of it, that tends most to 
introduce uncertainty and capricious interpretation. As noticed 
in our last, it is the jumping at random from the spiritual sense to 
the literal, and from passages where commentators admit that types 
are presented to others where this is denied, without any sufficient 
guide to direct our judgment in the choice of either, that makes 
the interpretation of Scripture vague and unsatisfactory. To treat 
the Word of God as so irregular and inconsistent a production, 
most strongly tends, in fact, to bring its divine inspiration into 
doubt. A book that is of divine inspiration must be uniform 
throughout. If it has a spiritual signification in one place, it must 
in all. And most assuredly, whether we possess it or not, some 
universal Rule of interpretation must exist, which would make it 
every where harmonious.* 

* We will here add an example of the inconsistency which must pervade 
the writings of Biblical Critics, whilst, on the question of spiritual or of merely 
literal interpretation, they halt between two opinions, reasoning at one time in 
favour of the former sentiment and at another in favour of the latter, and en- 
deavouring to combine the two systems into one, by portioning out the Sacred 
Code between them. We have repeatedly cited Home's Introduction to the 
Scriptures, as esteeming it a very valuable work, and because the learned 
Author gives many strong testimonies in favour of the spiritual sense of the 
Divine Word : yet, led by the authority of some modern critics of high name, 
this intelligent writer repeateJly exhibits, on this subject, extreme vacillation, 
and sometimes so limits his admissions, and so counteracts his most decided 
assertions, as to make them almost nugatory. The following passage, for in- 
stance, would certainly lead the reader to conclude, that he ought, throughout the 
Scriptures without exception, to look for a spiritual sense : " Since we learn 
from the New Testament, that some histories, which in themselves convey no 
peculiar meaning, must be interpreted allegorically or mystically, (as Gal. iv. 
22 — 24,) and that persons and things are there evidently types and emblems of 
the Christian dispensation, and its divine founder, as in Matt. xii. 40, John 
iii. 14, 15, 1 Cor. x. 4, and Heb. vii. 2, 3 ; it is plain that the mystical sense 
ought to be followed in the histories and prophecies of the Old Testament, and 
especially in such passages as are referred to by the inspired writers of the New 
Testament ; who having given us the key by which to unlock the mystical 
sense of Scripture, we not only may, but ought, cautiously and diligently to 
make use of it. Where the inspired writers themselves direct us to such an 
interpretation, when otherwise we might not perceive its necessity, then we 
have an absolute authority for the exposition, which supersedes our own con- 
jectures, and we are not only safe in abiding by that authority, but should be 
unwarranted in rejecting it." [Vol. ii. Pt. ii. Ch. i. § v.] Here he delivers his 

10* 



226 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

II. As a knowledge of the true nature of the Scripture history 
is of so great importance to the right understanding of the Word 

own sentiments ; and though he particularly mentions the passages which have 
been explained in a sense different from that of the letter by the writers of the 
New Testament, he does not exclude any others. By and by, however, he in- 
troduces, from Beausobre, this limitation : " No mystical or typical sense ought 
to be put upon a plain passage of Scripture, the meaning of which is obvious 
and natural ; unless it be evident from some other part of Scripture that the 
place is to be understood in a double sense." [Vol. ii. Ch. viii. § iii. 9.] But 
what a remarkable specimen of zigzag observation, first running in one direction 
and then in another, have we in the following sentences ! In favour of the 
reality and the superiority of the spiritual sense, he gives this excellent remark ; 
" The literal sense, it has been well observed, is undoubtedly first in point of 
nature, as well as in order of signification ; and consequently, when investigat- 
ing the meaning of any passage, this must be ascertained before we proceed to 
search out its mystical import : but the true and genuine mystical or spiritual 
sense excels the literal in dignity, the letter being only the medium of convey- 
ing the former, which is more evidently designed by the Holy Spirit." Yet it 
seems that this sense so superior in dignity, and for the conveyance of which 
the letter is composed, is to withdraw upon occasion and leave its conveyance 
empty ; for " Though the true spiritual sense of the text is undoubtedly to be 
most highly esteemed, it by no means follows that we are to look for it in every 
passage of Scripture !" We are not too easily to be satisfied with the mere 
shell, neither; for the sentence adds, " it is not, however, to be inferred that 
spiritual interpretations are to be rejected, although they should not be clearly 
expressed." But, after all, " the spiritual meaning of a passage is there only to 
be sought, where it is evident, from certain, criteria, that such meaning was de- 
signed by the Holy Spirit." [Vol. ii. Ch. vi.] These certain criteria are after- 
wards restricted within limits sufficiently narrow : but, assuredly, no criterion 
can be more certain, that a writing contains a spiritual sense, than, that it was 
actually dictated by the Holy Spirit, and proceeded from Him, all whose words 
are spirit and are life ! Our author concludes his chapter " On the spiritual In- 
terpretation of Scripture," with a specimen of similar vacillation : each sen- 
tence conveys an apprehension, that in the previous sentence he had gone too 
far : they are a series of checks and counterchecks : and he strikes the balance 
so exactly, that his remarks each way arc equipoised, and nothing positive re- 
mains. He says, " In the spiritual interpretation of Scripture, there are two 
extremes to be avoided, viz. on the one hand, that we do not restrict such in- 
terpretation within too narrow limits ; and, on the other hand, that we do not 
seek for mystical meanings in every passage, to the exclusion of its literal and 
common sense, when that sense is sufficiently clear and intelligible." It is to 
be remembered, that he had before admitted the literal sense to be "sufficiently 
clear and intelligible," — so much so, that " we might not perceive the necessity" 
of a spiritual interpretation, — in many of the passages "where the inspired 
writers themselves direct us to such an interpretation." However, having now, 
at the expense of consistency with himself and with them, thus settled the two 






V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 227 

of God, we will here make upon it a few general observations, 
before we proceed to illustrate, by examples, tlie applicability of 

extremes, he dwells through two or three sentences upon the latter of them, 
and represents " the evils of spiritualizing the sacred writings too much" as so 
formidable, that the reader is in danger of forgetting the rule first laid down, 
that we are " not to restrict such interpretation within too narrow limits." 
Checking himself, therefore, he says, " In these strictures, the author trusts he 
shall not be charged with improperly censuring that fair and sober accommoda- 
tion of the historical and parabolical parts to present times and circumstances, 
or to the elucidation of either the doctrines or precepts of Christianity, which 
is sanctioned by the "Word of God • — such an accommodation is perfectly al- 
lowable, and may be highly useful ; and in some cases it is absolutely neces- 
sary." But now he again fears that he has gone too far ; so, checking himself 
again, he adds, " Let every truly pious man, however, be aware of the danger 
of extending this principle beyond its natural and obvious application," &c. — 
It is thus that writers endeavour to hide their inconsistencies behind loose 
general terms. In a proper sense, certainly, the " natural and obvious applica- 
tion" of the principle of spiritual interpretation, is, to every part of the Word 
of God. If the Scriptures contain a spiritual sense at all, to assign this to some 
places and not to others is in the highest degree unnatural: and this capricious 
application of it is so far from being the obvious one, that it is contrary to what 
every person would expect, who considers the undeviating regularity which 
distinguishes all the works of God. Such a person, being previously assured 
that the Scriptures are the Word of God, on being told that they contain in 
some parts both a spiritual and a literal sense, and in others a literal sense 
alone, would think the assertion just as reasonable, as to be told, that some 
portions of the human race are constituted both of souls and bodies, and others 
of bodies only. 

"We have not made the above remarks from any inclination to depreciate 
Mr. Home's valuable " Introduction ;" but merely to exemplify the difficulties 
and inconsistencies which are unavoidable, when the Word of God is regarded 
as not being a uniform work, but is supposed to be itself affected with the mon- 
strous inconsistency, of being written upon one principle in one sentence, and 
upon a contrary one in the next. The blemishes we have noticed, do not be- 
long, personally, to Mr. Home, but to his system ; and in them he only follows 
other writers. Indeed, we think, upon this subject, that his own views are 
generally superior to those of the authorities whom he quotes ; for some of the 
best of his remarks in favour of spiritual interpretation, are his own, whilst 
those which he introduces against it are adopted by him from others. The two 
or three puling sentences which we have last animadverted upon, are taken by 
him from the Christian Observer. Altogether, what he has said in favour of 
spiritual interpretation, having a strong base in reason and Scripture, cannot 
be overturned ; what he has advanced against its universality, being loaded 
with a weight of inconsistency, has, of itself, a tendency to fall : and from a 
comparison of the whole the Biblical Student must, we should expect, be led to 
wish for a Rule of interpretation, which would vindicate the spiritual nature of 



228 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

tlie Rule afforded by the science of analogies to its interpreta- 
tion. 

To view tills subject in its proper light, we ought to have just 
ideas of the nature of the dispensation under which the Israelites 
lived. Of this Paul gives us plain intimations when he says, " that 
the law was our schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ* ;" and when 
he also says, of the festivals of the Mosaic ritual, that they were " a 
shadow of things to come, but the body is allf ;" and, further, 
that " the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not 
the very image of those things, can never, with those sacrifices 
which they offered year by year continually, make the comers there- 
unto perfect^ :" declarations which shew, that the Mosaic dispen- 
sation was merely an intermediate arrangement of the Divine 
Economy, established to form a necessary link in the great chain 
of the divine operations for the salvation of men, and to fill up the 
interval between the period when the pure internal worship and 
knowledge of divine things, which existed with the posterity of 
Adam and of Noah, were lost, and that in which they should be 
restored by the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. "We thus, also, 
are instructed, that the rites, records, and prophecies, given to that 
church, were not so much given for their private advantage, as with 
a view to the permanent advantage of all nations under a future 
dispensation, in which should be imparted the knowledge and en- 
joyment, — the real substance and body, — of those divine things, 
which, among the Jews, were only symbolized and represented. 

1. Whatever may be thought of that arrangement of the Divine 
Economy in the government of the world, by which the inconsiderable 
nation of the Israelites, occupying a country of inconsiderable extent, 
was selected from all others, and invested with privileges as the chosen 
people of God ; and whatever reasons the sceptical mind may find 
for refusing to recognise them in that character ; there yet are 
circumstances attending their history, which, upon any other hypo- 
thesis than that which admits their pretensions, it would be im- 
possible to explain. The chief of these circumstances is the 
singular fact, that this nation, though by no means so distinguished 

the Word of God throughout, and exhibit it as an harmonious and coherent 
system. 

* Gal. iii. 24. f Col. ii. 17. J Heb. x. 1. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 229 

by attainments in arts, sciences, and literature, as some of those 
by which it was surrounded, alone maintained, through many 
hundred years, the great truth of the unity of God, and alone wor- 
shiped him as an Infinite Spirit, to attempt the representation of 
whom by sculpture or painting, is to be guilty of profanation; 
while even the most polished of the other nations of the globe 
were sunk in the grossest polytheism and the most senseless idola- 
try. That this superiority of the Jews above all other people, in 
their ideas of the most sublime of all subjects, arose from any 
superiority of intellect of their own, is a position which no admirer 
of classical antiquity will admit : nor, indeed, can it with any 
shadow of truth be asserted ; since their own history abundantly 
evinces, that, of themselves, they were as prone to polytheism and 
idolatry as their neighbours. This was true of them from the 
highest in rank to the lowest, — from the priest and king to the 
meanest of the populace. Aaron, the brother of Moses and the 
first high priest, made a golden calf for the people to worship 
within a month or two after their deliverance from Egypt, and 
after witnessing those extraordinary displays of the power of 
Jehoi T ah, in the execution of which he had himself been made a 
principal instrument ; and Solomon, who had erected the temple of 
Jerusalem, even " his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel, 
which had appeared to him twice*," and he built places of worship 
for the idols of his foreign wives, at which he worshiped him'self : 
whilst the bulk of the nation was so addicted to idolatrous prac- 
tices, that they seldom entirely discontinued them ; from the death 
of Joshua, presently after which " they forsook the Lord, and 
served Baal and Ashterothf," to the Babylonian captivity,, which 
overtook them " because of their wickedness which they committed 
to provoke the Lord to anger, in that they went to burn incense, 
and to serve other gods."| These facts sufficiently evince what 
was the bent of that people's mind : it is evident then, that had 
not a succession of prophets arisen, who continually called them 
from the worship of idols to that of the one true God, this nation 
would have been as deeply immersed in ignorance respecting the 
nature and unity of the Divine Being, as the most stupid and 
superstitious of their neighbours. And whence did the prophets 
obtain their pure and elevated sentiments? Arising among a 
• 1 Kings xi. 9. f Judges ii. 13. J Jer. xliv. 3. 



230 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

people as prone to the worship of stocks and stones as all those 
around them, and in the midst of nations, who, though in some 
respects more enlightened, never produced such witnesses to the 
one true God ; whence could the prophets have received the testi- 
mony which they bore, but from Him to whose truth they testi- 
fied? Under all the circumstances of the case, the existence of 
the knowledge of the one true God, and the denial of all other 
gods, whether co-equal or subordinate, with the rejection of image- 
worship, in the religion of the Jews, are facts which admit of no 
rational explanation but that which the writers of the Jewish 
Scriptures advance : — that they were immediately taught them by 
the true God himself. The argument is an unanswerable one : it 
has been ably handled by many of the Christian advocates ; and in 
their hands I leave it; the simple mention of it being all that is 
requisite to our present purpose. 

But though the infidel can never satisfactorily account, on his 
principles, for the great fact just mentioned, he can raise difficulties 
from other sources, which some may find embarrassing. He ob- 
jects, If the Jews were really chosen of God in preference to all 
other people, how comes it to pass that they were not better than 
all other people ? And if God thought proper to reveal himself to 
man, how came he to shut up the knowledge thus revealed in a 
corner, and confine it so long to one of the most inconsiderable 
nations of the earth? It is remarkable that the circumstances 
thus made the ground of objection, are explicitly avowed, as if to 
anticipate the objections, in the writings of Moses : "Under- 
stand," he exclaims to the people, " that the Lord thy God giveth 
thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; 
for thou art a stiff-necked people."* "The Lord did not set 
his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in 
number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all peo- 
ple."! These facts being so, it has been concluded, by all who 
are disposed to interpret them in a liberal manner, not that the 
Jews were not selected at all, — there being other considerations 
which so strongly prove the affirmative, — but that they were not 
selected for any private benefit intended to them above others, but 
to promote the designs of Divine Benevolence towards mankind at 
large, and thus for the eventual benefit of the whole human race. 
* Deut. is. 6. f Ch. vii. 7. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 231 

This also has been urged by many Christian writers. " Shall we 
dare," it is well asked by Bishop Watson, " to accuse God of in- 
justice, for not having distributed the gifts of nature in the same 
degree to all kinds of animals, when it is probable that this very 
inequality of distribution may be the means of producing the 
greatest sum total of happiness to the whole system ? In exactly 
the same manner," he adds, " may we reason concerning the acts 
of God's especial providence. If we consider any one act, such as 
that of appointing the Jews to be his peculiar people, as uncon- 
nected with every other, it may appear to be a partial display of 
his goodness ; it may excite doubts concerning the wisdom or be- 
nignity of the Divine Nature. But if we connect the history of 
the Jews with that of other nations, from the most remote antiquity 
to the present time, we shall discover that they were not chosen so 
much for their own benefit or on account of their own merit, as for 
the general benefit of mankind."* 

Certainly, this is the reasonable conclusion ; that the selection 
of the Jews as a peculiar people, or to form for a while the visible 
professing church, was a necessary link in the great chain of those 
divine operations, which have for their object to promote, in the 
greatest possible degree, the general welfare of the human race. 
And what if the very circumstances of their being " a stiff-necked 
people," and " the fewest of all people," were those which rendered 
them fitter than any other nation to fill the station to which they 
were appointed, and thus were the cause of their being selected for 
it? Paradoxical as this may sound, I apprehend it is the truth. 
A dispensation like that which Moses was the instrument of 
founding, was necessary, before the higher dispensation of the 
Christian Eeligion could be imparted : None could be the proper 
subjects of suoh a dispensation, but a people of an external but 
very peculiar character, little receptive of the interiors of religion, 
(which is the spiritual meaning of the epithet " stiff-necked,") but 
capable, beyond those who look more at essentials, of attending to 
the minutiae of ceremonial worship, and of being impressed with 
a sense of sanctity during the performance of such worship : And 
none could be the actors in a ceremonial worship which was only 
to be performed in one place in the whole country, and at which 
place the whole male population was required to be present three 
* Apol. for the Bible, Let. 4. 



232 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

times in a year, but a people few in number, and inhabiting a 
country of small extent. Thus the very qualities of being stiff- 
necked and few in number, were those which rendered the Jewish 
people fit to be subjects, in that peculiar era of the world, of such 
a dispensation as alone could be given at that era, 

2. Assuming then that the Jews " were not chosen so much for 
their own benefit, as for the general benefit of mankind j" how did 
their selection conduce to this great end? I would answer, In 
two ways : first, in forming a church, which, as just stated, was 
necessary as a preparation for the Christian church, the establish- 
ment of which, and its exaltation to a more glorious state than has 
hitherto been seen, have always been intended by Divine Provi- 
dence, as the means of imparting the greatest possible benefits to 
mankind: and, secondly, as furnishing the means by which the 
Holy Word might be written in the form in which we now possess 
it; being that which is best adapted to render permanent the 
blessings of divine revelation, to make them the most extensive, 
and to secure them from perversion. We will remark upon the 
utility of the calling of the Israelites, for the accomplishment of 
both these objects. 

(1 .) It is evident to all who have reflected a moment on the 
subject, that the Divine Operations ever proceed by regular gra- 
dations and by orderly succession : they never jump to the end in 
view at once, but always act by a series of means terminating in 
the intended result : and where the actions of intelligent creatures 
intervene, it even appears that the Divine Providence so accommo- 
dates itself to their nature, as to allow them to act, to a certain 
extent, in contravention to its designs, permitting its own plans to 
be modified by them, yet so overruling the whole, as eventually to 
accomplish its own purposes, though, apparently, by a different 
course from that which would have been pursued, had not the in- 
tractability of self-willed creatures stood in the way. Thus, since 
much evil exists, which we are certain the Divine Being does not 
will, it cannot be said with truth, that " whatever is, is right" 
yet, as we may be sure that no more evil is permitted than cannot 
be restrained without depriving man of his free-agency, and de- 
stroying him as a human being altogether ; and as the whole is so 
overruled as to be productive in the end of the greatest possible 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 233 

degree of good; we may say with the utmost confidence, that what- 
ever is, is best. 

That the divine operations proceed by regular gradations and in 
orderly succession, is evident from every production of nature. 
Look, for instance, at the origin and growth of a tree. A seed 
falls to the ground : its parts being at once softened by moisture 
and opened by warmth, it shoots in one direction a root into the 
earth and in the other a stem into the air, which successively 
increasing in height and thickness, and putting forth branches and 
leaves, till it has attained its proper maturity in a certain number 
of years, the tree at length bears its fruit, and yields again new 
seeds : and never is it perfected without passing through these 
stages. Look again at man, and consider him only as destined to fill 
a station in human society. He is born an infant : the faculties of 
his mind and body open by degrees, and more perfectly as they are 
assisted by culture : at lengthy in about twenty years, his frame 
acquires its perfect form and stature, and his rational powers also 
are fully developed : and then, and not before, he is capable of 
filling his place among his fellows in society. Now, though this is 
the end designed by his Creator from his birth, he never springs 
up a full grown man at once, nor are any of the steps of the pro- 
cess necessary to his becoming such ever dispensed with* His 
growing up an adult human being and a rational creature, is, how- 
ever, in the design of his Creator, only a lower end, subordinate to 
that of his becoming a subject of eternal happiness : but to this his 
own concurrence is necessary ; wherefore here the Divine Creator 
allows his own operations and designs to be modified by the de- 
terminations and actions of his creature. 

Now if in individual cases, — in the individual inhabitants of the 
world, and even in its inanimate productions, — the operations of 
the Divine Hand, — the dispensations of the Divine Providence, — 
so clearly follow a regular order and proceed by successive steps ; 
unquestionably the case must be the same in regard to the human 
race in general, considered as a whole, and viewed in its progress 
from the beginning of creation to the latest evolutions of time. 
There can be no doubt that a similar order is observed in the 
Divine Economy as it regards the whole, as we see is observed in 
regard to each individual of each successive generation; and if we 
are not equally sensible of it, the reason must be, because our 



234 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

observation takes in so small a part of the chain ; because we are 
only intimately acquainted with man as he is in the generation, and 
in the country, in which we live; and because the knowledge 
which we possess of former times from history is extremely general 
and extremely partial, and does not reach, in an authentic form, 
except in the Scripture records which are very brief, to any very 
remote antiquity : it, moreover, is seldom studied by us for the 
light it may afford in regard to the history, not of political events, 
but of human nature. It is indeed a proverbial remark, that 
human nature is the same in all times and in all places. As to 
the general characteristics of human nature, no doubt this is true : 
but that its general characteristics appear under an endless diver- 
sity of modifications, is a truth equally certain. We see how great 
these diversities are, among the inhabitants of different countries 
and climates, the subjects of different governments, and the dis- 
ciples of various forms of religion, even when, in time, they are all 
contemporaries : how numerous then must the diversities become, 
when remoteness of ages is also allowed its operation ! The in- 
habitants of New Zealand are not more antipodes to the inha- 
bitants of the British metropolis in physical than in moral geo- 
graphy : and it is probable, that neither the one nor the other can 
form an idea approximating to the truth respecting the character of 
the primeval inhabitants of the globe. But all these varieties 
must, unquestionably, be arranged by the Divine Operator in some 
certain order, such as is most conducive to the well-being 
of the whole; more especially the successive varieties, or the 
changes in the state of mankind during successive generations : 
and where the perverse self-will of man interferes, so to speak, with 
the divine designs, so as to prevent them from being accomplished 
in the most direct manner, still, doubtless, it is overruled so as to 
be subservient to them in the end. The divine designs are ever 
kept in view, and will finally take effect, although the operations 
of the Divine Providence to this purpose receive some modification 
from the intractability of the subjects on which it has to act. But 
even where they are resisted most, still a regularity of progression 
will be maintained. The course of a fever is as regular as the 
planetary motions : and whatever changes the self-will of man 
may occasion in his own state ; and however Divine Wisdom may 
in consequence modify the operations of its Providence ; still we 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 235 

cannot doubt that the whole is so arranged as to flow in most 
regular order, and that the revolutions of the human mind, occur- 
ring in successive ages, are guided in as certain a course as the 
revolutions of the solar system. 

Such seem to be the views which reason would suggest respect- 
ing the order observed in all the proceedings of the Divine Economy 
and Providence; and the testimony of Scripture is to the same 
effect : it always represents the divine operations as regarding the 
fitness of times and states, and as never precipitating events till the 
suitable season has arrived ; and also, as allowing the determina- 
tions of mankind to modify its arrangements. Thus, when the 
possession of Canaan is promised to Abraham, the state of the 
inhabitants at the time is assigned as a reason for deferring the 
fulfilment of the promise till the fourth generation ; " for," says 
the Divine Speaker, " the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet 
full."* So, that most important of all events, the coming of the 
Lord in the flesh, is constantly referred to " the fulness of the 
timef:" and it would be ridiculous to suppose that the time thus 
spoken of is determined by any fore-ordained number of days and 
years, independently of the state into which it was foreseen that 
mankind would, in such a period, have come. As for the modifica- 
tions which the arrangements for the bringing into effect the 
ultimate divine purposes, — not those purposes themselves, — re- 
ceive from human determinations and actions; or the manner in 
which the Divine Providence adapts its proceedings to contingen- 
cies which man is allowed to determine ; the Scriptures are full of 
examples : we will mention but one : Jesus Christ says " Jeru- 
salem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them 
that are sent unto thee ; how often would I have gathered thy 
children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her 
wings : and ye would not ! Behold, your house is left unto you 
desolate."^ 

Now it is evident from many passages in the New Testament, 
that the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the consequent 
raising up of a church that should look to him for salvation, was 
the purpose of God, even before the creation of the world. Paul 
declares that he was commissioned to preach " to the intent that 
now might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, 
* Gen. sv. 16. f Gal. iv. 4, Eph. i. 10, Mark i. 15. $ Matt, xxiii. 37, 38. 



236 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus 
our Lord*:" and Peter, speaking of Jesus Christ, says, "Who 
verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but 
was manifest in these last times for you."f And it is evident that 
the passages in Which Paul and Peter speak of the election and pre- 
destination of those to whom they write, do not allude to any 
divine decree passed from eternity in favour of them as individuals, 
but to an eternal purpose to raise up a church of believers in the 
Word Incarnate ; and that all who sincerely enter the church thus 
eternally predestined and elected, are themselves called the pre- 
destinate and elect* Whatever may be the true mystery of " God 
manifest in the flesh," certain it is that it was looked to from 
eternity as the only means of permanently effecting the union of 
God with his creatures, on which depends their salvation. But if, 
nevertheless, before this could take place so as to be productive of 
its full effect, it was necessary that certain preparations should 
intervene, and even, as it would appear, that the human mind 
should be allowed to descend into the lowest state into which it 
could fall without degenerating from the human into the merely 
animal nature: then it will be seen that such a dispensation as 
that given to the Jews was required to fill up the last and darkest 
portion of the intermediate time. Doubtless the dispensation of 
divine benefits under which the primitive inhabitants of the world 
lived, even after sin had entered, was of a higher and more interior 
nature than any that could be given afterwards : but this be- 
came so entirely corrupted, that an end was put to the church 
which lived under it, by the flood. The proper time and suitable 
state being not yet arrived for the coming of the Second Adam, a 
new dispensation, evidently of a different nature from the former, 
and not of so interior a character, that being no longer suited to 
the more external state into which man had descended, was given 
to Noah and his posterity. Mankind continuing still to fall lower 
and lower, this dispensation also suffered perversion, and from its 
ruins arose all the idolatries of the eastern world. Still the time 
and state had not arrived for the appearance of the Great Eestorer : 
wherefore, mankind being disposed to rest in the mere externals of 
religious worship, with little regard to its essence in the heart and 
mind, a dispensation was given, in which the rituals of worship, 
* Eph. Hi. 10, 11. f 1 Pet. i. 20. 






V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 237 

being prescribed by divine wisdom, and agreeably to the laws of 
that analogy between natural things and spiritual, by which divine 
essences descend into material forms, were effective of a com- 
munication between God and man, sufficient to keep mankind in a 
salvable state, till "the fulness of time" should have arrived for 
the appearance of God in the flesh. 

Thus it appears that the human mind passed through a series wf 
successive changes, descending still lower and lower, or becoming 
continually of a more gross and external character, but still pro- 
ceeding with, the utmost regularity, from the creation of man to 
the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ ; and it appears also, that the 
economy of Divine Providence, adapting itself to man's various 
states, by affording new dispensations of the divine will as the 
previous ones became perverted, continued to furnish to man, in 
every state, the means of salvation. It is also easy to conceive, 
that, in the course of these progressions, a state might occur, which 
was suited for the establishment of such a dispensation as was 
given to the Jews, and for no other : in which case, it was worthy 
of the Divine Being to give such a dispensation. 

But it is objected, that, allowing that a period may have occurred 
in the history of the human mind in which no other dispensation 
of divine things than such as was communicated to the Israelites, 
would have been suited to the state of mankind, this does not ac- 
count for its being confined to one small nation ? that still it was 
unjust to deprive the rest of the world of its benefits ? It may be 
answered, that probably other nations enjoyed advantages in con- 
sequence of this arrangement, which they could not have enjoyed, 
had not the Jews filled the station which they actually did in the 
Divine Economy, constituting, for a time, the visible church of 
God upon the earth. This may sound like a paradox., yet perhaps 
it will not be difficult to shew that it is true. 

All that we know of the Divine Economy leads to the conclu- 
sion, that the existence of a church on earth in which the true 
God is known, and of persons in that church by whom the true 
God is worshiped in sincerity, are necessary to the well-being, 
perhaps to the continuance in existence, of the whole human race. 
Whoever believes, as every reasonable creature must believe, God 
to be the sole fountain of life, will easily see that if all communi- 
cation should be cut off between him and his creatures, the latter 



238 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

must immediately fall into annihilation. All must likewise see, 
that the communication between God and his creatures must be 
more direct, and the life of which he is the source must be received 
in greater fidness, when just ideas are entertained of him, and 
when, with corresponding affections of the heart, the mind is 
turned towards him its proper centre : may it not then be con- 
sidered as highly probable, that they who possess this just know- 
ledge of him, and thus receive in its highest degree the life which 
flows from him, form channels by which an adequate measure of it 
is conveyed to others ? that they afford a chief connecting link by 
which the Creator is united to his creation ? This, at least, is con- 
formable to the order we see observed in other things. Look at 
the human frame : We see in it two principal organs, — the heart and 
the lungs, — upon the action of which the life of the whole depends: 
They do not constitute the whole of the body ; but the whole of 
the body lives by its connexion, in all its parts, with them : Thus 
they are the media, by which life, originally from the Source of 
Life, actuates the corporeal members. But the more immediate 
living principle in the body is the brain; this being the organ of 
the soul, which lives in a sphere nearer to the Deity. Though the 
action of the heart and lungs are necessary to the life of the other 
parts of the body, their action could not continue a moment if all 
the nerves were separated which connect them with the brain: 
from this they receive the life, which they dispense through the 
body. It is true that the brain also communicates immediately 
with all the other parts of the body, which thence derive all their 
powers of motion and sensation : yet they only can receive these 
from the brain so long as they remain also in communication with 
the heart, separated from which they wither and perish. Now 
may we not say, that what the brain is to the human frame, God 
is to the whole human race ? He communicates with the soul of 
every individual on the globe, as the brain communicates with 
every member and fibre in the body : but may it not be necessary, 
in order to man's reception, at least, of spiritual life from this 
communication, that there be some among the mass who should be 
to the rest what the heart and lungs are to the other members ? 
Who can these be, but those who have a genuine knowledge of 
God from revelation, and who are thence capable of being animated 
by the purest affections, directed by the highest intelligence ? May 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 239 

it not then be reasonably presumed, that the existence of a church 
in the world, favoured with the light of revelation, is necessary to 
the well-being of the whole human race? And this the Lord 
Jesus Christ evidently inculcates, when he says to his disciples, 
"Ye are the salt of the earth," and "Ye are the light of the 
world."* 

But although it is necessary to the welfare of mankind that God 
should have a church on the earth in which he is known by reve- 
lation ; and although it is a high privilege to belong to it ; it may 
not be necessary that all mankind should be admitted to that pri- 
vilege, any more than it is necessary that the body should be all 
heart. If a church exists any where, all mankind are benefited 
through it in a secret manner : a union is thus maintained between 
the world and its Maker, of which all the human race enjoy the 
advantages : but it may not be necessary that they should all be 
stationed in the direct channel of communication. It does indeed 
appear to be predicted in Scripture, that a time shall come in which 
the knowledge of God by means of his Word will become general 
throughout the earth : yet it cannot be expected that its influence 
will ever become every where the same : there will always be a 
centre in which its truths will be more clearly understood, and the 
life to which they lead more eminently cultivated ; and this centre 
will be as a heart to the rest. Future ages are no doubt destined 
to behold a great amelioration of the human race : but none sup- 
pose that the highest point at present attained is to remain im- 
movable till all mankind have arrived at it : the amelioration then 
will be effected by a proportionate elevation of the whole. The 
portion of mankind who are the subjects of that true civilization, 
with its accompaniments, moral and scientific, which is the result 
of religion derived immediately from revelation, may be compared 
to a pyramid, of which those which are in the highest light consti- 
tute the apex: now the sphere of human improvement derived 
from this source may go on extending, till it has reached the 
darkest corners of the earth : but it will always retain its pyra- 
midal form ; and the wider the base, the higher will be the summit. 
But if such is to be the state of the human race when " the eternal 
purpose" of God shall have had its full effect, and under a dispen- 
sation which brings real advantages to all who become its subjects, 
* Matt. v. 13, 14. 



240 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

very different must have been the case during the times which 
"God winked at*," or when the human race at large was in its 
lowest state of decline, and under a dispensation which conferred 
little superiority on those to whom it was given. A church in 
which God was known by revelation, to form in a manner the 
heart of the world, was then also necessary : but it was not neces- 
sary, to its acting in that capacity, that its members should be 
numerous. To carry on the simile : in the human frame, a strong 
action of the heart is indispensable to high health and superior 
vigour, and perhaps the general powers are all exalted by the in- 
crease of its energy, so long as the energy of the brain keeps pace 
with and controls it ; but a very weak and languid action is suffi- 
cient to the mere continuance of life : applied to the moral frame 
of the world, the former state is that which the Divine Benevolence 
aims eventually at producing ; the latter was all that, at the time 
when the Jewish Church existed, the state of mankind admitted. 
If it is true, according to the testimony of the Scriptures, that the 
Lord's disciples, or the members of his Church, are " the salt of 
the earth," it also appears to be true, from the same authority, that 
even the existence of a small quantity of this salt is sufficient for the 
preservation of the mass : thus, could ten real servants of the Lord 
have been found in Sodom, it would have been preserved : and, to 
reverse the mode of statement, the destruction of the kingdom of 
Israel would have taken place in the days of Elijah, had not 
seven thousand still been left who had not bowed their knees to 
Baal.f 

It seems then a just conclusion, that so long as a church is 
maintained on earth in which the true God is known by revelation, 
the gentiles also partake of the benefit, and are kept in a salvable 
state ; and that this benefit results, whether the persons imme- 
diately constituting the Church be many or few. Thus this benefit 
was secured, even by the establishment of the Church in one 
nation, and that so small a nation as was constituted by the 
Israelites. And if, as may rationally be inferred, the state of man- 
kind at that time was such as did not admit of a higher dispensa- 
tion than one which consisted chiefly in representative rites, it may 
easily be conceived, that the advantage of being its subjects was so 

* Acts xvii. 30. 

f Gen. xviii. 32, 1 Kings xix. 17, 18. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 241 

slight, that no injustice was done to those who were not admitted 
to the privilege. 

(2.) But if it appears, from the views just developed, that the 
calling of the Israelites was a measure of Divine Goodness, designed 
more for the general benefit of mankind than for their own private 
advantage ; still more will this be seen when their selection is re- 
garded as furnishing the means by which the Holy Word might be 
written in the form in which we now possess it ; being that which 
is best adapted to render permanent the blessings of divine revela- 
tion, to make them most extensive, and to secure them from 
perversion. In this point of view we are also to consider it. 

It was shewn in our last Lecture, that a Revelation from God to 
man, — a communication of Divine Wisdom in a form adapted to 
to human apprehension, — must be produced by a sphere or emana- 
tion of Divine Truth flowing forth from God, passing through the 
angelic and spiritual into the material world, and there present- 
ing itself in natural language ; and that its language must consist 
of images taken from the objects that appear in nature, and from 
the common modes of thinking and acting of the beiugs whom 
there it found.* We have seen also, that there not only is a 
perfect analogy between all the lower parts and inferior objects of 
nature, and certain moral, intellectual, and divine essences; but, 
iie, between all that belongs to man as an inhabitant of a 
natural world, and what belongs to or concerns him as the heir of 
a spiritual one : and hence we have observed, that the analogical 
language of the Word of God is not confined to the mention of the 
irrational and inanimate parts of nature, but admits all that arises 
out of man's inclinations and feelings as an animal and naturally 
rational being, and as a member of civil society; because all this 
answers, by a decided mutual relation, to that which belongs to his 
spiritual affections and feelings, as an immortal and spiritually 
rational being, designed to become a member of angelic society.f 
If this be true, (and surely no plausible objection can be raised 
against it !) it follows that a Eevelation from God, following the 
laws of the Analogy between natural things and spiritual, cannot 
be given, which does not treat much, in its letter, of human beings 
and of human actions. If all the objects of nature answer by regular 
analogy to spiritual things, most of all must man, the principal being 
* P. 129. t P- 131. 

11 



242 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

in nature, and his actions as a member of civil society. Of man, then, 
and his actions, a composition really given by divine inspiration must 
extensively treat in its letter. But of what persons and actions 
could it thus treat ? Evidently, they must either be purely alle- 
gorical ones, — that is, such persons as never really existed, and 
such actions as never were actually performed,— or they must be 
representative ones,— real persons invested by divine appointment 
with a representative character, and whose actions (such of them at 
least as the sacred history records) were so overruled as to bear a 
representative signification. Probably, either mode might serve 
adequately to convey the divine and spiritual things which divine 
revelation is designed to communicate : but it is easy to see that 
this would be accomplished much more fully by the latter method 
than by the former. If the Bible-history had been a pure allegory 
throughout, destitute of a foundation in actual occurrences, it would 
long ago have been rejected as a mere fable. Men who had a know- 
ledge of the science of Analogies, as was the case in times of very 
remote antiquity, might have been equally benefited by a revelation 
in the style of pure allegory as by one in the garb of true but re* 
presentative history ; and accordingly, to compose such allegories 
was, in those distant ages, a customary mode, perhaps the only one, 
of imparting instruction : but when the key for the decyphering of 
such compositions was lost ; when the human mind had become of 
so gross a character as scarcely to regard any thing as real beyond 
the objects of sense ; had no divine revelation been extant but a 
purely allegorical one, it would soon have been entirely neglected 
and have fallen into oblivion. The spiritual sense being unknown 
and the literal sense perceived to be unreal, the whole would have 
been deemed unworthy of attention. To obviate this mischief, 
means were provided by Divine Providence, for uniting the advan- 
tages of pure allegory with those of true history. In the darkest 
night of human degeneracy," when man was incapable of any direct 
perception of heavenly things, and wholly immersed in the carnal 
part of his nature, Divine Goodness, by selecting a nation which 
was more entirely of this character than any other, — " a stiff-necked 
people," — to represent those things which they were incapable of 
interiorly perceiving and feeling, brought divine subjects into their 
most extreme and lowest natural form. By causing the Holy Word 
to be written at this time, and to treat in its literal sense of the 



V.] THE SCRIPTERES ASSERTED. 243 

transactions of this people, its Divine Author gave to the revelation 
of divine things a fixity of character, of which it could not other- 
wise have been made susceptible : he laid for it a foundation in 
the lowest possible base, as the means of rendering it the most 
securely permanent. He thus conjoined even nature in its extreme 
circumference and uttermost boundary with himself, and provided 
the means of extending divine instruction to the most debased of 
mankind. A revelation thus circumstanced acquired external evi- 
dence in addition to the internal. The Jews are to this day wit- 
nesses to us of the truth of the leading facts of the Scripture-his- 
tory, and of the belief of their ancestors, that it was given by 
inspiration. Thus, even though the deep wisdom which the Divine 
Word inwardly contains has been unknown, it has generally been 
received as of divine origin : it has been reverenced as holy ; and 
hence the important truths which are in many places extant in the 
letter have been pressed with authority upon the mind and heart. 
It doubtless, also, is time, that whilst even the bare historical cir- 
cumstances are read with an acknowledgment of the divine origin 
of the record, the mind is disposed to a holy frame, which is a 
plane for the insemination of spiritual graces ; as the performance 
of the representative worship of the Jews had a similar effect on 
the well-disposed among that people. , 

This then was the main object of the calling of the individual 
nation of the Israelites, and of making them the subjects and de- 
positaries of divine communications. This singular people was in 
fact selected, to exhibit, in a sensible manner, for the instruction of 
all the generations of men that may ever exist on this globe, the 
consequences with which both the obedience and disobedience of 
the divine laws are necessarily attended , and at the same time to 
picture, with the utmost exactness, all the changes of state that the 
church at large, or its individual epitome, man, can ever experience. 
That people in particular was selected for this purpose, not because 
they were themselves at all more the objects of divine favour than 
any other nation, but because their genius and temper were such, 
that they were more capable than any other people of being made 
the mediums of representing > under external symbols and natural 
occurrences, all the things and subjects which Divine Wisdom 
desires to reveal to man. 

The disposition of the Jews to multiply ceremonial observances 



244 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

beyond what was required of them, and to substitute these for the 
morals enjoined by the law of God, is noticed in the gospel : 
" The Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands 
oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders : and when they 
come from the market, except they wash, they eat not : and many 
other things there be which they have received to hold, as the 
washing of cups and pots, brazen vessels, and of tables.— 
Laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of 
men, as the washing of pots and cups : and many other such like 
tilings ye do."* So, whoever has looked into the works which 
describe the manners and customs of the Jews, or into the writings 
af the Rabbins, must have been struck with the tendency to 
minute observances, even regarding things the most indifferent and 
insignificant, which they every where exhibit : he must also have 
been surprised at the subtlety with which they discover, even in 
" the weightier matters of the law," some fancied precept for some 
outward observance, and the dexterity with which they substitute 
the latter for the former.f It is evident, also, that they have par- 
taken of this character ever since they were a people, and that this 
gave occasion to some of the rites with which the dispensation, of 
which they were the subjects, was loaded. " I spake not unto 
your fathers," says the Lord by the prophet, " nor commanded 
them, in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, 
concerning burnt- offerings and sacrifices ; but this thing I com- 
manded them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and 
ye shall be my people, and walk ye in all the ways that I have 
commanded you: But they hearkened not J," &c. So, in reference 
to their conduct in the wilderness, the Lord says by another pro- 
phet, " Because they had not executed my judgments, but had 
despised my statutes, and had polluted my sabbaths, and their eyes 
were after their father's idols :" — which words clearly imply that 
they did not regard the interior things of religion, but were 
idolaters at heart ; " wherefore," it is added, " T gave them also 
statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should 
not live§ ;" referring to the ceremonial observances, which have no 

• Mark vii. 3, 4, 8. 

f For full proof of this assertion, and for some remarkable illustrations of 
the Jewish character, see Appendix, No. V 

X Jer. vii. 22, 23, 24. § Ezek. x*. 24, 25. 



THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 245 

sanctifying efficacy of themselves, being representative types, only, 
of holy tilings, bnt not identical with them. 

Now this disposition of that people to neglect essentials and to 
cleave to formalities, if it disqualified them from constituting an 
interior church themselves, eminently adapted them to be made the 
representatives of such a church, and to have their affairs over- 
ruled, so as to be subservient to such representation. Nor is there 
any room to object, that such control was incompatible with their 
free agency and moral responsibility, when this their gross temper 
and superficial disposition is regarded. The actions of the Jews 
would no doubt have been of the same general character as they 
were, had they not been subjected to such a controlling influence 
as we are supposing ; for they were, in fact, very similar to those 
of other half-civilized nations and tribes : and how easy must it be 
to the Divine Providence, working as it were upon the general 
tendencies of men of this description, as upon materials prepared 
to its hands, to give such a direction to the specific actions re- 
sulting from those tendencies, as was necessary to induce on them 
the form which its purposes required ! Under any circumstances, 
the persons mentioned in the Bible as doing good or bad actions, 
would have done good and bad actions : the exact form, only, of 
the actions, being the result of the circumstances in which they 
were placed. It is common with philosophical minds to amuse 
themselves with thinking, how certain individuals would have acted 
under certain circumstances : but few suppose that different cir- 
cumstances would have changed their character altogether, though 
they would have differently modified its developments. There is 
then no difficulty in conceiving how the Divine Providence could 
overrule the actions of a small nation, such as we are describing, 
but more particularly of certain individuals in it, so as to render 
them exactly representative of the subjects which form the proper 
matter of a divine revelation, without affecting their inward states 
of mind as free and accountable agents. All that was necessary to 
adapt the people for being thus acted on, was, the negative quality 
of not being themselves inwardly principled in the divine and 
spiritual things which they were made the mediums of repre- 
senting ; for then it would have been impossible to separate their 
representative from their proper character, and none could have 
sustained a holy representation without being holy himself; and as 



246 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

in forming his proper character man is left to his own freedom, it 
would thus have been impossible that a series of representative 
persons could have been provided. But this was easy with a 
people disposed to rest entirely in externals : with such, the ex- 
ternal could be so separated from the internal, that the vilest 
persons might be made to represent the most holy things : and so 
entirely were the Israelites of this character, that even the great 
truth, that man lives after death, was not to them openly revealed, 
and the rewards of obedience and punishments of disobedience 
proposed to them were all such as were to be experienced in this 
life only.* To have, in our actions, a view to the life hereafter, 
opens and spiritualizes the mind ; to have no view but to the life 
here, closes and materializes it : the nature of the Jewish mind, 
then, may easily be estimated, by the nature of the motives pro- 
posed to them, which, we may be sure, were the highest that they 
were able to appreciate : and external motives, though not such as 
will introduce into the mind heavenly graces, are best adapted to 
induce such conduct as will represent them. 

Such then is the character of the whole of the Israelitish history, 
as recorded in the Scriptures. From one end to the other, it is 
representative and typical of spiritual things ; the affairs of that 
people having been constantly overruled by Divine Providence for 
this purpose. Their history may in fact be considered as a grand 
divine drama, the first scene of which commences with the calling 
of Abraham, and the last concludes with the destruction of 
Jerusalem by the Romans. All their patriarchs and kings, priests 
and prophets, and indeed the whole people, were the actors in this 
wonderful drama; and the characters represented were the Lord 
Jesus Christ, as to all that he performed and suffered for the re- 
demption of mankind, and all the states through which he passed 
to union with the Father ; — his Church in all the steps of her pro- 
gress from carnal to celestial ; and the individual member of the 
church through all the stages of his corresponding advancement : 
and every thing which creates opposition is at the same time 
shewn, — the obstacles to be overcome, and the lapses to be 
dreaded, as well as the blessings to be obtained. 

This certainly is a view of the design of the selection of the 
Israelites as a peculiar people, which fully exonerates the Father of 
* For summaries of the whole, see Lev. xxvi. and Deut. xxviii. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 247 

the universe from the charge of partiality towards one family of his 
creatures over the rest, and truly shews that they were not chosen 
for their own sakes, but that, as was promised to Abraham, through 
them all the families of the earth might be blessed ; a promise which 
indeed refers, primarily, to the birth of the Word Incarnate among 
that nation, but which is also applicable to the gift of the written 
Word communicated by their means. This view of the subject fur- 
nishes, in addition, a complete answer to the objection which demands, 
" If the Jews were really chosen of God, in preference to all other 
people, how comes it to pass that they were not better than all other 
people ?" since, if they were not chosen to form a real internal 
church, composed of heavenly-minded worshipers of God, but only 
to represent a church of such worshipers, then individual sanctity 
was not particularly to be looked for among them, and their private 
characters had no more necessary connexion with the things repre- 
sented by them, than has the private character of an actor on the 
stage with that of the prince or hero whom he personifies. In 
short, every objection which can be raised against the calling of the 
Israelites, and against the divine inspiration of their history, is 
entirely removed by this view of the subject, as will be further 
seen in our next Lecture ; and perhaps I may be allowed to ex- 
press my own convictions by saying, that certain I am, that whoever 
will candidly study the Jewish character and history, both as re- 
corded in the Scriptures and as presented in the writings of their 
Eabbins, will find ample reason to conclude that this view is the true 
one. The Mosaic dispensation was given as the Apostle affirms, 
"because of transgressions*;" — because such was the gross character 
of that people, and, indeed, such was the state of the whole of man- 
kind in those ages, before the work of redemption was accomplished, 
that a dispensation in which spiritual things were openly revealed 
could not have been received, or would have been immediately 
profaned : and it was given, as is declared in the same place, " till 
the seed should come to whom the promise was made ;" that is, as 
had been explained before, to fill up the intermediate period till 
the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was to found a spiritual 
dispensation. And not merely a transient, but a permanent benefit 
was conferred on mankind by these means. The dispensation 
p'iven to the Israelites was full of " patterns (or types) of things in 
* Gal. iii. 19 



243 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

the heavens*," which are replete with the sublimest instruction 
when their antitypes are understood : and the very history of the 
people who were the subjects of this representative dispensation 
became representative too, depicting to the enlightened observer 
every thing that can be experienced in the spiritual life. This 
also the Apostle teaches : " All these things happened unto them 
for ensamples; and they are written for our admonition, upon 
whom the ends of the world are come."f We have seen before, 
that all who accept the Scriptures at all, are constrained to allow a 
great number of their historical relations to have a typical, repre- 
sentative, and spiritual meaning: we have seen also, that if we 
allow the Word of God to have a spiritual sense in some parts, we 
must, to make it consistent with itself, allow the same in all : and 
the view now presented shews how this may be the case in the 
divine narrations, consistently with the reality of the historical 
events, agreeably with the attributes belonging both to the nature 
of God and the nature of man, and in accordance with the laws of 
that Analogy which must always govern the connexion between 
natural things and spiritual, between the world and its Maker, and 
between the literal expression and divine import of every composi- 
tion which has God for its Author. 

III. Having presented these views of the true nature of the 
Scripture history, we are now to offer a few examples of the appli- 
cability of the Science of Analogies to its interpretation. 

1. The first instance which we select is that of the miraculous 
capture of Jericho, on the entrance of the Israelites into the pro- 
mised land. 

(1.) Among the objections which have been raised against the 
Scriptures as containing a revelation from God, and against the 
idea that the Jews were, in any manner, the elect people of God, 
none has been more insisted upon than that drawn from the exter- 
mination by them of the Canaanites, executed, as it would appear, 
by the express command of God. This has been held up to exe- 
cration, by the Deists, in the strongest terms, as a measure of the 
most enormous cruelty and most indefensible injustice : it was a 
measure, they affirm, which a God deserving of reverence could 
* Heb. ix. 23. f 1 Cor. x. 11. 



V,] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 240 

never authorize, and a people entitled to esteem could never exe- 
cute. But great as is the clamour which has been raised against 
this part of the Bible-history, there is no part of it which has 
been defended by the Christian advocates with more powerful 
arguments : their success, indeed, in most respects, has here been 
quite triumphant. As they have shewn, if vice ever deserves 
punishment, then most justly was punishment inflicted on the 
Canaanites. If the infliction of punishment can ever be a measure 
of mercy, then was mercy displayed in the extirpation of that race : 
for if the contagion of vice is more deadly in its results than the 
contagion of disease; and if, to arrest the latter, it is a beneficent 
act to interdict all communication between an infected city and the 
surrounding country, though the consequence may be the death of 
most of its inhabitants ; then was it an act of goodness, on the 
part of the Supreme Disposer, entirely to cut off a nation which 
set examples of the most flagitious criminality to all around, and 
all whose posterity (surely we may allow Divine Omniscience to 
know this !) would only have grown up to add inhabitants to the 
kingdom of darkness. Supposing, too, that any who were less 
criminal suffered ; it is to be recollected, that, if man is immortal, 
the death of the body is by no means the greatest calamity which 
can befal him : it is even reasonable to believe, what the Scriptures 
intimate, that death is often a kind dispensation; that, among the 
wicked, they are sometimes removed "in whom there is found 
some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel*," and that 
"the righteous is taken away from the evil to come."f It were 
as reasonable then to blaspheme the Divine Power which suffered 
Herculaneum to be overflowed with burning lava, Lisbon to be 
swallowed up by an earthquake, and the Caribs and other nations 
of the West Indies to be exterminated by the Spaniards; and 
which permits thousands of persons to be annually destroyed in 
Barbary and Turkey by the plague, and a third part, or more, of 
the human race to perish in infancy; as to revile the Divine Word 
in which is recorded the destruction of the Canaanites by the 
sword of the children of Israel. Christian advocates admit, and 
have convincingly shewn, that there is here an analogy between the 
Word of God and his works : and if we would deny the God of 
Scripture for sanctioning the extirpation of a most abandoned 
* 1 Kings xiv. 13. f I? a . lvii. 1. 

11* 



250 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

nation, (who, however, were by no means completely extirpated, 
after all,) we must deny the God of nature for permitting such 
multitudes, not only of the wicked but of the good, to perish by 
war and murder, by shipwreck and famine, by the convulsions of 
nature and the visitations of disease. 

"But though it is perfectly easy to vindicate the Divine Justice 
in the destruction of the Canaanites, whether effected by the sword 
or by any other means, some difficulty, certainly, still attends the 
transaction, w r hile the nation to which the execution of it was com- 
mitted is supposed to have been a nation of saints. The extirpation 
of the wicked, when their wickedness has arrived at its summit, may 
be a measure of necessity : but I apprehend that men whose minds 
are imbued with real religion, — whose hearts are modelled by the 
spirit which says, "Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; 
do good to them that hate you ; and pray for them which despite- 
fully use you and persecute you*;" would revolt from a task of un- 
relenting slaughter. How much better, then, are the difficulties of 
this transaction solved, by the view of the character of the Jewish 
nation, and of the design of their election, which has been given 
above ! 

So again, though the justice of the measure of extirpating the 
Canaanites is easily vindicated, yet some difficulty still attaches to 
to it while it is regarded as flowing from the pure tcill of God, and 
the executioners are supposed to have been the peculiar objects of 
his favour. The true character of the objects of divine favour, and 
that of their God, are brought openly to light in the Gospel ; and 
there, if we learn that the disciples of pure religion are " to love 
their enemies, to bless them that curse them, to do good to them 
that hate them, and to pray for them who despitefully use and 
persecute them;" we learn also, that they are to do this, "that 
they may be the children of their Father which is in heaven ; for 
he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth 
rain on the just and on the unjust." f The testimony of the Old 
Testament, when it describes the divine character as it is in itself, 
not, as is frequently the case, as it appears to the apprehension of 
gross and wicked minds, is to the same effect : " As I live, saith 
the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked } ;" " He 
doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." § Ac- 

* Matt. v. 44. f Matt v. 45. J Ezek - xxxiii. 1 1- § L " ra - »»• 33 - 






V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 251 

cordingly, it is never supposed that the pains of the wicked in hell 
will be inflicted by angels of light, but by spirits of darkness : cer- 
tainly, nothing that requires spirits of darkness for its actors, how- 
ever indispensable in the Divine Economy, can be positively agree- 
able to the Fountain of Good : of course, neither could the Israel- 
ites, when destroying wicked nations, and thus doing the work of 
the spirits of darkness, be absolutely the objects of divine appro- 
bation. All suffering, even when inflicted as the punishment of 
evil, must then be of divine permission, not directly of divine will. 
What the Divine Being wills in it, must be, the preservation of the 
good, and restraint upon the perpetration of evil: and as these 
objects cannot be accomplished without the infliction of punishment 
upon the wicked, this is permitted, as a matter of necessity, though 
not of itself pleasing to the Divine Nature. This view, founded 
upon the plainest Scripture-authority, is surely as liberal as any 
can desire, except those who would confound all distinctions of 
right and wrong, and would rather have happiness attached as a 
reward to evil than to good. 

But is it asked, How can these ideas be .reconciled with the 
commands so positively laid upon the Israelites to destroy the 
Canaanites, and enforced by threats of punishment on themselves 
if they omitted it ? The view which has been given above, of the 
manner in which the Divine Truth, emanating from the bosom of 
Deity, presents itself in the world of nature, solves the enigma, 
and clears the subject from all remaining difliculty. Divine Truth, 
we have seen, clothes itself in the world, not only with images 
taken from exterior nature, but with the ideas proper to the mind 
of man as an inhabitant of the natural world ; frequently, indeed, 
with ideas which only belong to him in the merest state of nature. 
Hence the necessity of distinguishing between those parts of the 
letter of the Divine Word, which are expressed according to ap- 
pearances only, and those parts in which the genuine truth is 
exhibited, as noticed in our second Lecture* : and it will always 
appear to man in a mere state of nature, and who judges by his 
senses without elevating his rational faculty into a less fallacious 
light, that all suffering, as well as all good, flows from the imme- 
diate will of God. Hence in the letter of the Word of God, which 
in many parts is expressed according to the ideas of such persons, 
* P. 65, 66. 



252 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

some things will seem to be of command that are only of permis- 
sion. In the spiritual sense, which is in a sphere above the letter, 
resides the genuine truth : but when this descends into the lower 
sphere in which are the thoughts of man in his natural state, 
it there puts on an appearance different from its proper one, and 
assumes a conformity with his state and ideas. Thus, in the literal 
sense of the Word, many things are said, and even some practices 
are permitted, in which the ideas of Divine Truth, and the laws of 
Divine Order, are accommodated to the gross state of apprehension 
in which the Jews were, among whom, and by whom as instru- 
ments, the Word of the Old Testament was written. This is not 
an unauthorized assertion, but is expressly taught by the Lord 
Jesus Christ. When, in answer to the inquiry by the Pharisees, 
whether it is lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause, 
he had laid down the divine law respecting the indissoluble nature 
of the marriage union, they, in reference to Deut. xxiv. 1, said to 
him, " Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorce- 
ment and to put her away?" — to which he answered, " Moses, 
because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away 
your wives : but from the beginning it was not so."* lie had 
delivered the same doctrine on a former occasion, and had illus- 
trated it, not only by the case of divorce, but of several other 
things, permitted, and, apparently, commanded, in the Mosaic law. 
Thus, in reference to Lev. xix. 12, and Deut. xxiii. 23, he says, 
" Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou 
shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine 
oaths : but I say unto you, Swear not at all," &c.f So, in regard 
to the law of retaliation, laid down in Lev. xxiv. 19, 20, he says, 
" Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a 
tooth for a tooth : but I say unto you, That ye resist not evilj," 
&c. Hence, and from other examples, it is evident, that there are 
enactments in the Mosaic code, which, in their external form, are 
not of divine will, but only of divine permission, notwithstanding 
their being delivered in the form of commands. Divine Truth 
adapted itself to " the hardness of men's hearts," and to the gross- 
ness of their ideas, in regard to many things, which " from the 
beginning were not so," — which, if they followed the order de- 
signed by the Creator when he founded the creation, would be 
• Matt. xix. 7, 8. f Ch. v. 33, 34. $ Ver. 38, 39. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 253 

quite otherwise. Of this nature, certainly, is the liberty which 
nations arrogate of engaging in mortal conflict. We are permitted 
at the present day, and the Jews were apparently commanded, to 
slaughter others in war : but this also " from the beginning was 
not so :" it was one of the concessions made to the Jews " because 
of the hardness of their hearts," and which we claim a right to act 
upon to a certain extent, because of the hardness of ours. 

None of these things, however, are enjoined upon mankind, even 
in appearance, under the spiritual dispensation of the gospel ; nor 
would they have been enjoined upon the Jews, and recorded in the 
Word of God, had they been the subjects of any but a repre- 
sentative dispensation. Such ordinances were prescribed to them, 
because, though not holy or even good in themselves, they were 
exactly symbolic of things truly spiritual and divine. Thus, had 
not that nation been selected to represent the subjects connected 
with man's welfare as a spiritual being and an heir of eternity, we 
should never have heard of their exterminating the Canaanites by 
divine command : they might probably have done so in the general 
course of events, and as other conquerors have frequently sub- 
jugated, and in great part destroyed, other nations : but we should 
never have been told that they acted by divine authority. Every 
tiling that takes place in human affairs, being under the control of 
Divine Providence, may, so far, be said to be done by divine 
authority : here, however, we are certain, that much is done which 
is not of the divine will, though nothing can occur without the 
divine permission. That guidance of Providence, then, which in 
general is tacit aud secret, was,. in the case of the Israelites, open 
and avowed, only because their affairs were so directed as to be 
made symbolic of heavenly things. Thus they were not only 
tacitly led to execute the judgments upon the Canaanites, as the 
northern nations were led to overrun and destroy the corrupt 
Eoman Empire, and as the Turks were led to destroy the equally 
corrupt empire of the Greeks, but a direction to that effect was 
given them by divine authority, because it was seen by Infinite 
Wisdom, that the whole might be so overruled as to be represen- 
tative of spiritual things of the greatest importance. But, as 
observed above, the act of destroying can never in itself be pleasing 
to the God of love, nor can the actors be the peculiar objects of his 
favour: when therefore the Israelites are charged to do such 



254 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

tilings, and are promised blessings {temporal blessings, observe,) in 
consequence, it is solely because they here, as every where else, are 
carrying on the business of the grand drama of which they were 
the appointed performers. It was the things represented, not those 
executed, which were the objects really regarded with approbation 
by the Lord. The external acts obtained for the Jews a transient 
abode in the earthly Canaan ; but such of them as received an 
inheritance in the heavenly Canaan obtained it by very different 
means. This is only to be acquired by the things represented; 
and every Christian must do in reality what the extermination of the 
Canaanites outwardly symbolized, before he can be established in 
that heavenly kingdom, of which a land flowing with milk and 
honey is, by analogy, an expressive representative. 

Although then, in the main, the extermination of the Canaanites 
has been successfully justified by many Christian advocates, yet a 
higher view of the subject than has usually been taken is neces- 
sary to remove all the difficulties of the case : but all remaining 
difficulties are most completely removed, when the true character 
of the Israelitish nation, and of the code of Divine Truth of which 
they were the subjects, is distinctly apprehended ; when it is seen 
that that nation was selected to represent, only, the states which 
belong to the spiritual life, without being principled in that life 
themselves ; and that every circumstance of their history has a re- 
presentative application. 

(2.) To this account of the command given to the Israelites to 
destroy the Canaanites, we will add a general statement of its 
spiritual signification. By a most obvious analogy, natural foes 
are expressive symbols of spiritual ones ; and spiritual foes are not 
only the unseen powers of darkness, but the tendencies to evil and 
error which lurk in the corrupt heart of man, — all the vile lusts 
and deceptive persuasions which he is prone to indulge and 
cherish. It is against these that the Jord Jesus Christ warns us, 
when he says, " A man's foes shall be those of his own house- 
hold* :" for these words do not merely refer to the collisions of 
opinion, and the animosities on that account, which might be ex- 
pected to arise in families upon the promulgation of the gospel ; 
but to the discoveries it would make of the corruptions of the 
human heart, and to the conflict of feelings which man would 
+ Matt. x. 36. 






V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 255 

experience, in consequence, within his own breast. That the 
Israelitish people were types of the true members of the church, 
and of the principles which make men such, has been generally ac- 
knowledged, and cannot be denied after the statement of the 
Apostle, quoted in our second Lecture.* The same sentiment is 
also recognized on various occasions by the Lord Jesus Christ ; as 
when he calls Nathanael, on account of his guileless sincerity, " an 
Israelite indeed."f Such being the signification of the Jews or 
Israelites, it follows, that that of their enemies must be the con- 
trary, — that they must represent all that is opposite to, and 
destructive of, the sacred principles which constitute man a mem- 
ber of the church; and that is, all evil and all religious error. 
This then must be the general signification of the Canaanites : they 
must denote the corrupt tendencies and sentiments which occupy 
the mind of man, before it is new modelled by the principles of 
true religion ; and the command to extirpate them must be meant 
to affirm the necessity of removing the former before the latter can 
be established in security. This analogy is so plain, that its 
general features have been seen by many of the expositors ; though, 
for want of a regular key of interpretation, they usually err when 
they descend to particulars: it has even been rendered popular 
through the medium of poetry; as in the following lines. Taking 
Joshua as a type of the Saviour, the poet, after speaking of being 
brought to " Canaan's bounds," proceeds thus : 

" I see an open door of hope; 

Legions of sins in vain oppose : 
Bold, I, with thee, my head, march up, 
And triumph o'er a world of foes. — 

Lo ' the tall sons of Anak rise ! 

Who can the sons of Anak meet ? 
Captain ! to thee I lift mine eyes, 

And lo ! they fall beneath my feet. 

Passion, and appetite, and pride, 

(Pride, my old, dreadful, tyrant foe,) 
I see cast down on every side ; 

And, conquering, I to conquer go," 

Who can avoid being struck with the truth of the analogy thus 

pointed out, and who can help being affected with its beauty? 

* P. 45. t John i. 47. 



256 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

And is not the utility of it equally evident? Every one who 
knowns any thing of that wonderful labyrinth, the human heart, 
must be aware, that the work of removing its native waywardness 
and substituting in its place steady principles of virtue, which is 
the work that divines call regeneration, must include a great variety 
of particulars, and must be attended with an immense multitude 
of indescribable emotions; — indescribable, that is, in any other 
language than that of analogy. What other style of composition 
could be invented, which should intelligibly delineate the innu- 
merable fluctuations and vicissitudes of state, which, in the pro- 
gress of such an operation, must be experienced? The best de- 
vised arrangement of abstract terms that could be framed for the 
purpose, would only appear a confused jumble of endless repeti- 
tions. But construct an allegory to describe it : represent it 
under a series of historical circumstances occurring to a variety of 
persons all invested with a typical character , and we easily see 
that the object may be accomplished. That Iufinite Wisdom 
which is " acquainted with all our ways*," and which " knoweth 
the secrets of the heartf;" that Omnipotent God who alone can 
"take the stony heart out of our flesh and give us a heart of 
fleshj," and who alone knoweth all the mysteries of our spiritual 
as well as of our natural creation § ; he has described the work in 
the divinely inspired account of the deliverance of the children of 
Israel from Egypt and their establishment in Canaan: and by 
actually leading that people through a series of adventures exactly 
representative of the stages through which man is led to salvation, 
he has given to the pliability of allegory the solidity of historical 
fact. With the mere circumstances of the war, then, between the 
Canaanites and the Israelites, we have nothing to do : nothing is 
here proposed for our imitation : but the true moral of the history 
is instructive indeed ; and we ought to be eternally grateful that it 
has been written for our benefit. 

(3.) With this idea of the war of the Israelites against the former 
inhabitants of Canaan, we shall easily form a general conception of 
the import of the miraculous capture of Jericho. The following 
are the principal circumstances of the event, as related in the sixth 
chapter of Joshua : " The Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given 

* Ps. cxxxix. 3. t Ps - x 1 ^'- 21. t Ezek - xi - ly - 

§ Ps. cxxxix. 14, 15, 1G. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 257 

into thy hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men 
of valour. And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and 
go round about the city, once. Thus shalt thou do six days. And 
seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams' 
horns : and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times ; 
and the priests shall blow with the trumpets. And it shall come 
to pass, that when they make a long blast with the rams' horn, 
and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall 
shout with a great shout : and the wall of the city shall fall down 
flat, and the people shall ascend up, every man straight before 
him."* This is the command of the Lord to Joshua, who repeats 
it, a little more particularly, to the priests and people. Care was 
also taken that all the people, except the priests who blew the trum- 
pets, should march in silence for the first six days : for " Joshua had 
commanded the people, saying, Ye shall not shout, nor make any 
noise with your voice, neither shall any word proceed out of your 
mouth, until the day I bid you shout : then shall ye shout." f The 
procession thus moved round the city, once each day, for the first 
six days. " And it came to pass, on the seventh day, that they 
rose early about the dawning of the day, and compassed the city 
seven times : only on that day, compassed they it seven times. 
And it came to pass, on the seventh time, when the priests blew 
with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, Shout ! for the 
Lord hath given you the city. And the city shall be accursed, 
even it and all that are therein, to the Lord: only Eahab the 
harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, be- 
cause she received the messengers that we sent. And ye, in any 
wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make your- 
selves accursed when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the 
camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it. But all the silver and gold, 
and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated to the Lord; they 
shall come into the treasury of the Lord. So the people shouted 
when the priests blew with the trumpets. And it came to pass, 
when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people 
shouted with a great shout, that the wall of the city fell down fiat, 
so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before 
him : and they took the city."f 

Surely every one who believes that this miracle was really pei> 
* Ver. 2 to 5, t Ve r- 10, f Ver. 15 to 20. 



258 Plenary inspiration op [lect. 

formed, must feel that subjects of universal application must be 
represented under its various circumstances ; that, grand and mag- 
nificent as the literal facts are, yet, if no other end was designed 
to be accomplished by it than the capture of Jericho and the de- 
struction of its inhabitants, it never would have been performed 
by an exertion of Divine Power, nor recorded in the Word of 
Divine Wisdom; The crimes of nations render it necessary that 
they should be visited by the scourge of war in our days as well 
as in the days of Joshua, of which the world has of late years -had 
sad experience : but though the hand of Providence is still often 
strikingly manifested in the surprising turns and seeming accidents 
by which the event of battles or sieges, embracing the fate of em- 
pires, is frequently decided, yet no results are obtained without the 
action of causes which have at least something like a direct ten- 
dency to produce them. When therefore, in the case before us, 
we see such great effects produced by means apparently so totally 
inadequate, we may be satisfied that the whole must have some 
interior signification, and that it must have been in consequence of 
their answering to spiritual things by analogy, that the natural 
events took place. Had, also, nothing been intended but to ex- 
hibit a signal proof of Divine Power, the city might as well have 
been destroyed by raining upon it fire and brimstone from heaven, 
as is related of Sodom : but then the occurrence would not have 
told the particular lesson designed, of which all the accompanying 
circumstances were essential parts. 

Among all the emblems employed in the representative worship 
of the Israelitish church, the ark was the most holy and exalted. 
Several other great miracles are recorded to have been wrought by 
its presence, one of which was noticed in our third Lecture : and 
the reason that such power attended it was, because it was the 
symbol of the Divine Presence, and thus of the Lord himself, as 
dwelling in his church, and in the inmost centre of the soul of 
every true member of the church universal. How can the Lord's 
presence be thus effected with finite creatures, but by a sphere or 
emanation proceeding from himself, analogous to the sphere of heat 
and light proceeding from the sun of nature, by which the sun is 
rendered virtually present, and produces effects, in the earth ? We 
have seen in our last Lecture*, that it must be by a sphere or ema- 

P. 128, &c 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 259 

nation of Divine Truth, proceeding forth as a spiritual light, that 
perceptions are communicated to the minds of intelligent creatures, 
according to their respective natures and capacities : and we have 
seen also, that it must have been by such a proceeding sphere of 
Divine Truth, that the Word of God, if any composition deserving 
that title exists, must have been given. The Word of God, in its 
letter, is, in reality, the sphere of Divine Truth thus proceeding 
from God fixed and terminated in language taken from the objects 
of nature ; and it is, also, the great medium by which the Presence 
of God is effected in the world. The Divine Presence, then, thus 
produced, is what was represented by the ark : and to impart to it 
this representation, there were deposited in it the two tables of 
stone on which were written, by the finger of God, as is said, or 
by a miraculous divine operation, the commandments promulgated 
from Mount Sinai; these being the first-fruits of the written Word; 
and not only the first-fruits, but the substance of the whole. The 
tables were two, because they prescribed man's duty to God and his 
duty to his neighbour : these were condensed into the two precepts, 
to love the Lord above all things and our neighbour as ourselves ; 
and the Lord Jesus Christ declares, that " on these two command- 
ments hang all the law and the prophets."* There evidently then 
is reason in Analogy for the ark's being taken as a symbol of the 
Divine Presence with man by the Divine Truth proceeding from 
himself: and that to convey this representation was the express 
design with which the ark was constructed, is evident from the in- 
structions given to Moses on the occasion. Jehovah said to him, 
" In the ark shalt thou put the testimony [the two tables of the 
law] that I shall give thee. And there I will meet thee, and I 
will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat, from between 
the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all 
things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children 
of Israel."! That the ark was intended to be a representative of 
the Divine Presence, is clearly expressed in the words "there I will 
meet thee .-" and that it was intended to be a representative of the 
Lord's presence in and by his Divine Truth, is equally clear from 
its being added, "and I will commune with thee — of all things 
which I will^we thee in commandment unto the children of Israel;" 
for it can only be by his Divine Truth that the Lord communicates 
* Matt. xxii. 40. f Ex. xxv, 21, 22. 



260 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

his will to man. It is hoped then that the signification of the ark 
of the testimony, as the symbol of the Divine Presence, and, speci- 
fically, of the Divine Truth, must be sufficiently evident ; as also, 
that this was its meaning by appointment, and that there was a 
ground for that appointment in Analogy. 

Jericho was situated just at the entrance to the land of Canaan ; 
and as the land of Canaan represented the Church, Jericho, in a 
good sense, would represent the first state experienced on full ad- 
mission into it, and, indeed, the principle by which such admission 
is effected ; which is, instruction in doctrinal truths, accompanied 
with obedience of life. But while the land of Canaan was occupied 
by idolatrous nations, every place in it had a signification opposite 
to its genuine one: and, in this sense, Jericho represented the 
disposition to resist instruction, by opposing to it such sentiments 
as the corrupt tendencies of the human heart incline the under- 
standing to invent in their excuse. The city itself, then, was the 
type of such doctrinal sentiments as resist or profane the pure 
doctrines of the Church; and its wall signifies such false per- 
suasions and confirmations by fallacious arguments as defend such 
false doctrine, and prevent those who hold it from discerning the 
evidence of truth. Every one must see the analogy between the 
arguments by which a man defends his sentiments, and prevents 
an adversary from depriving him of them, and the wall that defends 
a city. As all such persuasions originate in depraved lusts and 
appetites, however they may be glossed over ; and as, in the time 
of judgment, the arguments with which they are excused will not 
serve to defend them ; therefore the city was burnt with fire*, and 
its wall fell down : for fire, as was shewn in our third Lecture, is 
the proper symbol of love, either good or evil, but always, when 
considered as to its destroying property, of evil love or lust ; and 
the falling down of the wall expresses privation of all protection. 
The marching round the city, denotes the exploration of the quality 
of the principle represented by it ; and the action upon it of the 
sphere of Divine Truth from the Lord was represented by the 
carrying round of the ark, and the sounding of the trumpets before 
it by the priests. The sounding of trumpets, in the representative 
dispensation of the Jews, was a symbol, by an obvious analogy, of 
the revelation, manifestation, communication, or bringing down, 
• Ver. 24. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 261 

of the Divine Truth, from a higher region towards a lower : the 
priests were representatives of whatever in man truly worships the 
Lord, which is all that belongs to the true love of his name, and 
which, of course, is the medium by which divine communications 
are received from him : the shouting of the people expresses 
consent and confirmation on the part of the inferior faculties. 
The reason why the priests were seven in number, and why they 
went round the city seven days, and seven times on the seventh 
day, is, because that number signifies what is supremely holy, full, 
and complete. 

Such, according to the sense resulting from the application of 
the Eule of Analogies, are the general subjects contained in this 
miracle : but perhaps this will be more clearly seen, if we make a 
brief application of it to a state to be experienced in individual 
regeneration. 

We have before bad occasion to notice the doctrine of the 
Apostle Paul respecting the inward and outward, or internal and. 
external man. These he treats as two distinct regions of the 
mental constitution ; and he speaks of the necessity of man's be- 
coming " spiritually minded" as to both. But he describes a state 
in which the inward man is opened, and replenished with "the 
things of the Spirit," while the outer man, which he sometimes 
calls " the flesh," still "lusteth against the spirit :" thus, placing 
himself in the situation of such a person, he says, " I delight in 
the law of God, after the inward man ; but I see another law in 
my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing 
me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members."* 
Now this state seems to be that which is represented by the 
Israelites, when they had arrived at the entrance of Canaan. The 
law of God is revealed to the spiritual Israelite in the wilderness, 
and is there made " the law of his mind." He there also learns to 
bring his outward conduct into conformity to it : for it is not to 
be supposed that, when the Apostle speaks of the man "who 
delights in the law of God after the inward man," as "seeing 
another law in his members, warring against the law of his mind :" 
and when he had before said, speaking in this character, " what I 
would, that I do not, but what I hate, that I dof ; " he meant to 
sanction the shocking casuistry of those who pretend, that immoral 
* Eom. vii. 22, 23. f Ver. 15. 



202 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

conduct is compatible with inward holiness. Doubtless, even the 
Jews were capable of, and many of them practised, good outward 
moral conduct, in obedience to their law. But the Apostle is not 
here speaking of actions, but of inclinations : for he opens the 
subject with saying, <c I had not known lust, except the law had 
said, Thou shalt not covet ; but sin, taking occasion by the com- 
mandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence* ;" he does 
not say, as he would have done, had he been speaking of actions, 
that it wrought in him adultery, or theft, or the like. The law in 
the members, then, is this concupiscence, — the evil inclinations 
that are seated in the external man. Nor can it be supposed, 
when he says that he had not known these but for the law, that 
he means to affirm that the law was the cause of their existence : 
what he means is, that the law made him sensible of their existence. 
But he that delights in the law of God after the inward man, 
though he may also have brought his outward conduct into con- 
formity with it, will not be fully established in the Lord's king- 
dom, nor experience the enjoyments which attend it, till the law in 
the members no longer wars against the law of the mind, but there 
is one law for them both, and both find delight in similar things : 
wherefore the Apostle exclaims, " wretched man that I am ! who 
shall deliver me from this body of death ?" j- — meaning by the 
body, not the natural body, but the external man, which is to the 
internal as the body to the soul, and whose affections being oppo- 
site to those of the internal, which is actuated by the spirit of life, 
it is called " a body of death." This deliverance is capable of 
being effected under the spiritual dispensation of the gospel, or by 
the Lord Jesus Christ ; as the same authority affirms when he 
adds, " I thank God : through Jesus Christ our Lord! »" words 
which mean, in his elliptical mode of expression, " I thank God, it 
is done through Jesus Christ our Lord." He therefore subjoins 
immediately, " The law of the spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, hath 
made me free from the law of sin and death." § 

This great work then, of the deliverance of man from " the body 
of death," or from " the law of sin and death," or from the con- 
cupiscences of the external man lusting against the spirit, is what 
is described, in the spiritual sense, by the extirpation of the 
Canaanites by the Israelites, under the conduct of Joshua, who is 
* Ver. 7, 8. f Yer. 24. $ Ver. 25 § Ch. viii. 2. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 263 

an acknowledged type of the Lord Jesus Christ : and since in 
spiritual as in natural conflicts much depends upon a decisive first 
blow, to represent this, the capture of Jericho, and its complete 
destruction, were effected by so grand a miracle. In this indivi- 
dual application, the ark will represent the presence of the Lord, 
by his Divine Truth, in the inmost of the mind, — an abode for 
him having been formed there by the application of the command- 
ments of the Divine Word to the regulation of the life, and by 
elevating them to the supreme seat in the affections, to reign with 
absolute sway ; by making, in short, the divine law, " the law of 
the mind." When this is effected, and this ark is carried round, 
or its influence directed upon, the spiritual Jericho, — " the law in 
the members," — no defence can stand before it. Care however 
must be taken that the action of this battery be directed in the 
manner prescribed : the ark must be carried round the city seven 
days, the priests must go before, blowing the trumpets, and on the 
seventh day, and not before, all the people must shout. The 
Christian will often discover an evil propensity in his heart, and 
wish it away, yet find it give him repeated cause to blush and 
lament for his weakness. The reason is, because the affections 
side with it too strongly ; because, though, from a view of its cor- 
rupt nature presented by the understanding, he fancies he wishes 
it away, the wish does not really amount to a will ; at least, it falls 
short of that ardent desire, accompanied by a sense of its intoler- 
able hatefulness, which must be felt, before it will yield either to 
his wishes or his prayers, — before the influences of the holy ark 
can be directed upon it with sufficient power to effect its downfal. 
This was indicated by the direction, that the priests should go 
before the ark, blowing the trumpets : for, as noticed before, by the 
priests was represented that inward principle of love from which 
the Lord is worshiped; and their blowing the trumpets is the 
manifestation of Divine Truth, or, what amounts to the same, the 
communication of an influx from the Lord by his Divine Truth 
within us, when called down by love to Him, and the strongest 
desire for the removal of every thing from the bosom which is 
opposed to that love. But even this is not all that is required. 
Love may be strong in the internal man ; and yet there may be 
obstacles in the way of its descent to encounter the evils below. 
All the lower principles which own the influence of the internal 



2C4 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

must concur also ; and when this is the case, nothing can resist it 
any longer. This concurrence is represented by all the people's 
shouting a great shout at the command of Joshua ; upon which 
" the wall of the city fell down flat, and they went up, every man 
straight before him, and they took the city." The reason why the 
people were commanded not to shout sooner, was, because until 
Divine Truth, inspired by love, descends in an orderly manner 
through the interiors to the exteriors ; and until the desire is in- 
creased to that holy intensity, and all the energies are called forth 
with that sacred fulness, which the frequent repetition of the num- 
ber seven involves ; effort on the part of the exteriors — the mere 
shouting of the people — would be unavailing: as, on the other 
hand, Divine Truth inspired with desire in the interiors is without 
power, till a corresponding state is produced in the exteriors : but 
when both concur, it is irresistible. 

These then are a portion of the truths conveyed by this beautiful 
part of the Word of God, when the literal sense is unlocked, by 
the key afforded by the fixed relation between natural things and 
spiritual. The analogies might easily be made more conspicuous ; 
but, as observed on former occasions, this would extend our dis- 
cussions to a greater length than most might be disposed to 
accompany us : and if some leading ones are seen distinctly, this 
is sufficient to establish the principle. Whether the doctrine thus 
developed, though the same as is taught by the Apostle, will be ac- 
ceptable, may perhaps be doubted : it certainly exhibits the Chris- 
tian warfare in a more serious light than some may be willing to 
view it : but in a matter of such deep importance the true question 
to be asked is, not What do we wish ? but What is the truth ? 
How much of the states here described will be perceptible to the 
experience of the advanced Christian, we do not undertake to say : 
doubtless, in the work of new-creating his heart and mind, much 
must be transacted by the Divine Hand in secret : but that the 
work is real, and will be conspicuous in its effects, is declared by 
the Lord Jesus Christ, when he says, " The wind bloweth where it 
listeth, and thou nearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell 
whence it cometh nor whither it goeth : so is every one that is 
born of the spirit."* But if we know not what the Lord doth 
with us now, we shall know hereafter f : it will form a great sub- 
* John iii. 8. t Chap. xiii. 7. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 265 

ject of our meditations in the life hereafter: and we ought to 
esteem it a high privilege, if, by obtaining the true key to the in- 
terpretation of the Scriptures, we can be instructed in some of its 
mysteries here. What the Apostle has stated in general terms, in 
the passages noticed above, is in this part of the Scriptures de- 
scribed as to all its particulars: and whether we have appetites 
for the wisdom which may hence be learned, or not, we certainly 
must allow that it is a species of wisdom worthy of God to com- 
municate, and which, if really couched under the natural images 
afforded by the Israelitish history, renders the affairs of that people 
worthy to have been directed by God, and to have been written by 
his inspiration. 

We will only add further on this subject, respecting the miracle 
itself, that the views which have been offered above give a rational 
account both of the reason why, and the means by which, it was 
performed. It certainly would never have taken place, had not the 
descendants of Israel been appointed to act the part on the theatre 
of the world which has been already described ; that is, to repre- 
sent, in an external form, bearing no resemblance to the things 
represented, and yet answering to them by an exact analogy, such 
things and states as belong to heaven and the church, and to the 
progress of man in the spiritual life. But under such a dispensa- 
tion, whenever means were employed corresponding to the spiritual 
operations of which they were the types, suitable effects invariably 
followed : for, though sometimes exhibiting themselves under the 
form of extraordinary miracles, these effects were in reality the 
necessary consequences of the means employed, flowing from them 
according to the order of the relation between spiritual things and 
natural, and being in fact as natural as any of the ordinary opera- 
tions of nature. The simple means used for the capture of Jericho, 
—the carrying about of the ark, the sounding of the trumpets by 
the priests, and the shouting of the people, — being prescribed by a 
Wisdom which knew how exactly they answered to certain spiritual 
operations, by which spiritual foes are dissipated and their refuges 
destroyed, were followed by natural effects, bearing a precise ana- 
logy to these spiritual ones ; and the presence of a sphere of Divine 
Power was produced by them, against which a triple wall of brass 
would have afforded no better protection to the city than its wall 
of stone. 

12 



266 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

2. The next circumstance in the historical relations of the Holy 
Word to which we are to direct our attention, is the history of 
Jephthah and his rash vow, as it is commonly called, as related in 
the 11th ch. of the book of Judges; the principal circumstances 
of which are the following. 

The neighbouring people of the Ammonites had overrun the 
land of Gilead, or the part of the Israelitish country which lay 
beyond Jordan, and had passed over Jordan also, to invade the 
land of Canaan itself; so that the nation was reduced to a state of 
great distress. Jephthah, on being elected to the command, in the 
first instance, endeavoured to bring the Ammonites to reason by 
treaty : but his overtures being rejected, " Then (it is said,) the 
Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead, 
and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from 
Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over unto the children of Ammon. 
And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou wilt 
without fail deliver the children of Ammon into my hands ; then it 
shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to 
meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, 
shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt- 
offering."* However rash this vow might be, the piety of it, ac- 
cording to the genius of those times, and of the Mosaic dispensa* 
tion, seems to have been acceptable : for he completely defeated the 
Ammonites, so that they "were subdued before the children of 
Israel." And the sacred narrative proceeds, *' Jephthah came to 
Mizpeh, unto his house : and behold, his daughter came out to 
meet him with timbrels and with dances ; and she was his only 
child. And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his 
clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter ! thou hast brought me very 
low ; thou art one of them that trouble me ; for I have opened my 
mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back."f With the spirit 
of a Spartan heroine, she replied, M My Father ! if thou hast 
opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do unto me according to that 
which hath proceeded out of thy mouth ; forasmuch as the Lord 
hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the 
children of Ammon." J She requested however a respite of two 
months ; to be spent in a solemn mourning for being cut off from 
the world in her unmarried state ; for, according to the ideas of 
* Ver. 30, 31. t Ver. 33, 34, 35. J Ver. 36. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 267 

those times, the circumstance of leaving no issue was deemed a far 
greater evil than death itself. The narrative concludes thus : 
" And it came to pass, at the end of two months, that she returned 
unto her father : who did with her according to his vow which he 
had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in 
Israel, that the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the 
daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite, four days in the year."* 

There is no passage of the Holy Word, which has been the 
subject of more controversy and discussion than this. Infidel 
writers, assuming it to be the fact that Jephthah's daughter was 
offered as a burnt sacrifice, have thought that they have found in it 
a fair occasion for railing against the volume in which it is nar- 
rated, and for denying the divine origin of either the Jewish or the 
Christian religion, as containing, among the documents on which 
they rest, a story so revolting to humanity. Expositors of Scrip- 
ture, also, have been greatly embarrassed with the narrative, and 
have been divided into two great parties, the one maintaining that 
the fair victim of what they both regard as a rash vow, was actu- 
ally put to death : the other, that she was only devoted to a life of 
pious celibacy. Both, however, have conclusively shewn, that 
there is here no room for the scoffs of the infidel, let the fact of her 
having been put to death, or otherwise, have been as it might : 
Bince, if such an execution was perpetrated, it was not done in 
agreement with the divine precepts, but in flagrant violation of 
themf , and only proved that this Judge of Israel was extremely 
ignorant of the Mosaic law ; and if he only devoted her to the ser- 
vice of the tabernacle, he still displayed a want of knowledge of 
the Levitical code, in supposing that he " could not go back" from 
his vow ; there being an express provision that such vows might be 
commuted.^ But whatever of error there might have been in the 
transaction, upon the supposition that the sacrifice took place, 
there would be much in it, even then, that demands admiration. 
If we understand it thus, what pure patriotism, what generous 
filial love, is expressed in the young woman's answer, when the 
fatal tidings are communicated to her ! It is happiness enough for 
her, that her country is rescued from its oppressors, and that 

* Ver. 39, 40. 

f Lev. xviii. 21 ; Ch. xx. 2 to 5. Deut. xii. 29, 30, 31. 

X Lev. xxvii. 1 to 8. 



263 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

her father is the instrument of its deliverance ; she said, therefore, 
" My Father ! if thou hast opened thy mouth to the Lord, do to 
me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; 
forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine 
enemies, even of the children of Ammon."* If she believed, when 
she uttered these words, that she was to be put to death, certainly, 
neither Greece nor Rome, with all their Leonidse and Decii, can 
furnish an instance of sublimer self-devotion than this of Jephthah's 
daughter. Had it occurred among those boasting people, instead 
of the plain unvarnished tale of the sacred historian, we should 
have had it pressed on our admiration with all the pomp of elo- 
quence. Nor would the steady resolution, and deep paternal 
feeling, of Jephthah, have passed unpraised. In fact it cannot be 
doubted, had but he and his daughter been heathens, that the very 
persons who now find in the transaction nothing but a pretence 
for vilifying the Scriptures, would then have extolled the whole as 
exhibiting the finest examples of the most noble constancy, the 
most disinterested virtue. Even the mistaken views from which it 
could be supposed that such a vow, or such a fulfilment of it, could 
be acceptable to the Supreme Being, would have been spoken of 
as meriting our pity, not our contempt : and the immoveable 
regard to principle, which in the father proceeded, and in the 
daughter submitted, to so deplorable a catastrophe, would have 
been thought to atone for any error of judgment in forming that 
principle, and to exalt those who were capable of it to the highest 
rank among the worthies who have shed a lustre on the human 
race. 

But though the praise of disinterested heroism cannot be with- 
held either from the father or the daughter, upon the supposition 
that she was actually sacrificed, yet Christians in general have 
thought that the honour of religion was compromised in the trans- 
action, because Jephthah was an instrument raised up by Provi- 
dence for the deliverance of Israel, and was divinely favoured as a 
commander and judge ; and because no intimation is given in the 
history that the vow was considered to be illegal, or was attended 
with any divine disapprobation. But if the honour of religion 
depended on the blamelessness of the characters distinguished in 
the Israelitish history, it would be very difficult to maintain it 
* Judges xi. 36. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 2 09 

indeed ; as there is scarcely one of them whose conduct might be 
proposed, without reserve) for the imitation of the Christian. To 
the best of them, as remarked above, on the authority of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, many things were permitted, " because of the hard- 
ness of their hearts," which " in the beginning were not so," and 
which are therefore prohibited to the member of the true church. 
Everything then proves the necessity of regarding the Jews as con- 
stituting, according to the view already offered, not a true internal 
church, but an external representative one, or rather as exhibiting 
the representation or type of one ; in which case, sanctity and in- 
telligence of private character are by no means implied to attend 
on the persons who sustained even the most holy and exalted repre- 
sentations. They were placed in those situations for the benefit 
of others more than for their own : that, through all generations, 
instruction of a divine and spiritual nature should be presented to 
mankind, in the most permanent as well as striking form in which 
it could be imparted. Thus considered, it matters not to us, 
beyond the interest which the story is calculated to excite, whether 
Jephthah's daughter was actually sacrificed, or whether she was 
merely made a nun ; any more than it does whether Agamemnon's 
daughter was actually sacrificed, or whether, as some authors 
affirm, she was, at the critical moment, conveyed away by Diana, 
to be a priestess in her temple, and a white hind miraculously 
substituted in her place. With this view, it matters not to us, 
whether Jephthah was the man of enlightened piety which he is 
described by some writers, or the ignorant barbarian assumed by 
others. His conduct, at the worst, was not below that of the most 
illustrious characters of the most polished nations of his age : it 
was such as naturally sprung out of the habits and modes of 
thinking of the times : but it was so overruled by Divine Provi- 
dence, as to the express form of it, and so related in the Divine 
Word, as to be representative of a highly important fact and state 
in the Christian warfare, and to teach a momentous spiritual truth. 
And this is all that we have to do with it, considered as one of the 
narratives of Divine Kevelation. 

(1.) It is not then my intention to attempt to decide the much 
disputed question, whether Jephthah's daughter was really put to 
death or not. My own opinion certainly is, that she was not : but 
I am led to form this opinion, more from a spiritual consideration 



270 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

which will appear in the sequel, than from any elucidation of the 
literal history which I have met with ; for after all the pains that 
have been taken by the learned to make the literal history itself 
point to this conclusion, I still think that the most unforced in- 
ference from the language of the original, and from the history in 
general, is, that the sacrifice took place.* But, it will then be 
asked, why is this ? Why is the history couched in such terms as 
would seem to imply that the dreadful rite was performed, when a 
statement of the contrary, if that was the fact, would be so agree- 
able to the feelings of every one who peruses the narrative, and 
would have obviated the objections which are thence urged against 
its holy nature ? Perhaps the only satisfactory answer which can 
be given is, Because the subjects treated of in the spiritual sense 
could not have been so fully represented, had not such an appear- 
ance been permitted in the letter. 

And if both these facts are true, viz. that Jephthah's daughter 
was not put to death, and yet that the literal narrative, without 
positively affirming it, seems to point to that inference ; it may be 
remarked, by the way, that we have here such an example of the 
manner in which the historical relations of the Scriptures are com- 
posed, as may tend to clear up some other difficulties in the literal 
accounts. For this will shew, that fully to convey the spiritual 
sense is the sole object regarded in the construction of the narra- 
tive. The circumstances recorded with this design are true ; but 
perhaps they do not immediately exhibit the whole truth, as regards 
the mere history ; other circumstances, without the knowledge of 
which the historical relation seems confused and imperfect, being 
omitted, because the mention of them would have been incompati- 
ble with the spiritual lesson intended. This, I am satisfied, is the 
true cause of the elliptical style so often observable in the sacred 
writers, and which renders it frequently so difficult to arrive at 
certainty respecting positive facts. Just so much is recorded as 
conveys the true spiritual sense, and no more : and Divine Wisdom, 
which only regards things eternal, deems it of no moment whatever, 
though an impression be thus left of transient events, different 
from the true one. Man's salvation and his advancement to eter- 
nity in spiritual wisdom, are the sole objects intended to be pro- 
moted by the gift of the Holy Word : but these no more depend 
• See this fully proved in the Appendix, No. VI. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 271 

upon Lis knowing with certainty whether Jephthah's daughter was 
put to death or not, than upon his knowing with certainty whether 
Mary Queen of Scots was privy to the death of Darnley or not. 
Both inquiries have exercised the pens of many profound and 
elegant scholars, because man, as living in time, takes an interest 
in temporal events : but He who is Eternal, and whose communi- 
cations to man are addressed to him as an heir of eternity, regards 
his notions on both subjects as matters indifferent, and no more 
deems it important that the facts of the one history should be cer- 
tainly known, than of the other. 

But when we say, that, notwithstanding the fact was otherwise, 
yet it is suffered to appear in the letter as if Jephthah's daughter 
was actually sacrificed, because otherwise the subjects treated of in 
the spiritual sense could not have been fully expressed : the eluci- 
dation may perhaps be thought to render the matter still more 
obscure. It may be asked, If human sacrifices were, in fact, the 
greatest abominations that could be offered to insult the Majesty 
of heaven, and were strictly prohibited in the divine law on that 
account, how can it be necessary that an appearance of the per- 
formance of one should occur in this history ; especially when it 
evidently is not related to represent any thing profane and unholy, 
but the contrary ? It may be answered, For the same reason as it 
was necessary for Abraham to believe that it was required of him 
by the Lord to sacrifice his only son, Isaac ; and to act under the 
influence of this belief so far, as to " stretch forth his hand, and 
take the knife to slay his son."* In the case of Abraham, also, 
the actual deed was prevented ; but the preparations proceeded far 
enough to shew, that the offering up of a child as a sacrifice, taken 
only in one point of view, has a holy signification ; though, taken 
in another, it is in the highest degree profane. The same may be 
concluded with probability from this circumstance, that, by the 
Levitical law, the first-born of every thing was considered as be- 
longing to the Lord : " The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 
Sanctify unto me all the first-born ; whatsoever openeth the womb, 
among the children of Israel, both of man and beast : it is mine."f 
This is the first instance where this law is delivered : and here the 
offspring of man and beast are put on the same footing ; and the 
only idea proposed is, the entire surrender of them, however they 
were to be afterwards disposed of, to the Lord. Now the first- 
* Gen. xxii. 10. t Ex - xiii. 1, 2. 



272 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

born of clean beasts were to be offered in sacrifice, without any 
alternative* : and for the first-born of unclean beasts, a clean one 
was to be substituted and sacrificed also ; as a lamb or kid for an 
ass.f But because no animal was considered as an equivalent for 
the first-born of man, he was to be redeemed by the payment of a 
price X : beside which, also, the whole tribe of Levi was taken in 
lieu of all the first-born of Israel § : but as the actual putting of 
them to death would have been horrible in itself, and would have 
borne the profane signification which we have intimated, they were 
consecrated to the Lord in a different way, and dedicated to the 
sacred service of the tabernacle ; which, however, was considered 
as a figurative sacrifice, and a death to the world. This is evident 
from its being instituted in reference to the death of all the first- 
born of Egypt ; " All the first-born are mine : for on the day that 
I smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt I hallowed unto me 
all the first-born in Israel, both man and beast : mine they shall 
be: I am the Lord."|| The death of the first-born of Egypt, 
both of men and cattle, was evidently representative of the spiritual 
death, as to all the leading sentiments and affections of their minds, 
of those who would oppress and destroy the true church of God, 
or the sacred principles which compose it; or a death to every 
thing holy and heavenly, true and good ; and the consecration to 
God of all the first-born of Israel, both of man and beast, must 
certainly be intended to represent something exactly the opposite 
of the former ; an entire devotion to the Lord of all the leading 
sentiments and affections of the mind, and a death to every thing 
selfish and earthly. Therefore, all the first-born of beasts were 
actually offered in sacrifice : and if the offering in sacrifice of the 
first-born of man could, to use the appropriate distinction made by 
Bishop Warburton, form merely a significative and not at the same 
time a moral action, it would have been commanded too, as the 
most complete mode of exhibiting the representation intended: 
but as it would have been a moral action likewise, and would, in 
this respect, have been most flagitious, consecration to the service 
of the tabernacle was appointed in its stead. 

(2.) Here then we shall have a key to that otherwise inexpli- 
cable mysteiy, the practice of human sacrifices. 

Every one must be apt, on the first thought, to wonder how so 

♦ Npn?b. xviii. 17. t Ver. 15. Ex. xiii. 13. % Numb, xviii. 16. 

§ Ch. iii. 12. || Ver. 13. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 273 

horrible a superstition, so repugnant to some of the strongest 
feelings of human nature, as the sacrificing of human victims, and 
especially of children by their parents, could ever have been tole- 
rated among mankind for a moment ; much more, how it could 
have been so extensively practised among the various, — indeed, as 
it would appear, among all the nations of antiquity, as history 
assures us was the fact.* Even the most polished nations of those 
times, the Greeks and Romans, were not untainted with it ; and 
we are assured that it was practised to an enormous extent in this 
now favoured island of Britain. It is evident from numerous 
passages of Scripture, that the custom was particularly prevalent 
among the original inhabitants of Canaan and the surrounding 
countries, especially in the worship of 

— — Moloch, horrid king, besmear'd with blood 
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears ; 
Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud, 
Their children's cries, unheard, that pass'd through fire 
To his grim idoh 

What could have been the reason that a mode of worship, which 
had every principle of natural feeling and common sense alike 
opposed to it, could ever obtain so extensive a reception ? Only, I 
apprehend, because, regarded in one point of view, or taken simply 
as a significant action, it was seen to carry a holy representation. 
Hence it got Into use, in disregard to its character in the other 
point of view, considered as a moral action ; which ought never to 
be laid out of sight, and in which it was in the highest degree 
atrocious ; and from which, when actually perpetrated, it became, 
in its signification also, in the highest degree profane. The prac- 
tice then would appear to have had the same origin as many other 
of the most detestable practices that have ever prevailed among 
mankind,— the perversion of something intrinsically good : and it 
illustrates the old and very true maxim,— The best things, when 
corrupted, become the worst. 

But to exhibit this in its proper light, it is necessary to say 
something of the origin of sacrificial worship in general ; though 
this will anticipate what we proposed to offer presently on that 
subject. 

* See Bryant's Dissertations on the Human Sacrifices of the Ancients ; or 
Magee on Atonement and Sacrifice, Vol. 1, Xo. V. 

12* 



274 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

(3.) If there be indeed a Mutual Kelation and Analogy, not of a 
merely arbitrary and conjectural kind, but fixed and invariable, 
between spiritual things and natural j we certainly must see in it a 
more clear and satisfactory origin of the practice, anciently quite 
universal, of the worship by sacrifices and burnt-offerings, than can 
be afforded by any other principle : and that worship itself, 
otherwise so unaccountable, affords, in its turn, a strongly con- 
clusive argument for the reality of that Analogy, and for the fact 
endeavoured to be established above, that in ancient times the rela- 
tions of this Analogy were extensively understood. A satisfactory 
theory of the origin of sacrificial rites is among the great desiderata, 
of modern religious science : and surely it must be agreeable to the 
intelligent and candid mind, to view so curious a subject in a light 
which invites the understanding and gratifies it,— in a manner of 
which light may be justly predicated ; rather than to acquiesce in 
regarding the whole as involved in darkness, and to take refuge in 
the blind persuasion which some authors of great name would 
recommend : — that sacrificial worship must have originated from 
God, because it is too irrational ever to have been invented by 
man I* Perhaps both parts of this proposition might be success- 
fully controverted, and it might be shewn, first, that sacrifices were 
not, strictly speaking, first instituted by God ; and, secondly, that 
when men adopted them they took for their guide a certain law of 
nature. The former sentiment has been strongly advocated by the 
celebrated Maimonides, among the Jews, and by the learned 
Spencer, and others, among Christians ; and if they had been aware 
that there is a regular analogy between spiritual things and 
natural, I doubt not that they would also have incontrovertibly 
established the latter, and not have fallen into the errors which at 
present disfigure their systems. To enter into all the inquiries 
necessary to this investigation, would require a work by itself: this, 
probably, if life and health be spared me, I may hereafter attempt: 
a mere sketch, chiefly proposed hypothetically, is all that can be 
offered here. 

We will first see what is the Scriptural idea of the Sacrifices 
under the Mosaic law. 

The prevailing opinion upon this subject is, that they were 

* See Abp. Magee's Dissertation On the Natural Unreasonableness of the 
Sacrificial Rite: being No. lv. in his work On Atonement 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 275 

instituted by divine appointment to prefigure the death or sacrifice 
of the Lord Jesus Christ , and that this was their only design. 
Most certainly it is true, that He is " the Lamb of God, that 
taketh away the sins of the world* :" and that all the sacrifices, 
yea, all the rituals, of the Mosaic law, yea, the whole Word of God, 
have a specific reference to him : but it is no less true that they 
have a reference to us likewise. Because " Christ our passover is 
sacrificed for usf," are we not to " purge out the old leaven, that 
we may be a new lump," and to " keep the feast, not with old 
leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with 
the unleavened bread of sincerity, and truth ?"| In other words, 
are we not to offer a spiritual sacrifice ourselves ? None but an 
Antinomian will answer in the negative. We are not only to look 
to Jesus Christ, but to follow him § : we cannot do this without 
offering the spiritual worship of the heart and mind : and the 
Scriptures plainly teach, that, as regards us, this spiritual worship 
is what the sacrificial worship represented. If sacrifices were de- 
signed to be significative of nothing besides the death of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, why were so many kinds of them prescribed ? Why 
were so numerous ceremonies directed to be observed in the offer- 
ing of each ? And especially, why were certain quantities of flour 
and oil, either crude or prepared in various ways in the form of 
cakes, to be burnt upon the altar ? || Why were the first fruits of 
the harvests to be presented ?|| These made as necessary a part 
of the Levitical offerings as the sacrifices of animals : evidently, 
then, the sacrifices of animals must also have represented spiritual 
things of the same general nature, though with a variety as to 
their species, as the offerings of cakes and fruits ; and as these 
cannot represent the death of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, 
neither can the others be confined to that signification. The truth 
then is, that, applied to the case of man, all the numerous sacri- 
fices and offerings of the Levitical code, represented the true 
worship of the Lord arising from all the affections and sentiments 
of a heavenly nature that can be inseminated by God into the 
human heart and mind ; and the offering of them upon his altar 
was expressive of the heartfeft acknowledgment, that they all 
are from the Lord, and to be ascribed to him alone j in which 

* John i. 29. \ \ Cor. v. 7. % Ver. 7, 8. 

§ Matt. iv. 19, xvi. 24, six. 21. John xiv. 26, &c || Lev. ii. &c. 



273 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

acknowledgment and ascription all true worship essentially 
consists. 

Many declarations, giving this idea of the design of sacrifices, 
are to be found both in the Old and New Testaments. David, in 
the depth of his humiliation for his crimes, when, if at any time 
the mind would be disposed to fly to external sacrifices, if either in 
themselves, or as representing the sacrifices of Jesus Christ, they 
possessed any efficacy, exclaims, "Thou desirest not sacrifice; 
else would I give it : thou delightest not in burnt- offerings : the 
sacrifices of God are a broken spirit : a broken and a contrite heart, 
God, thou wilt not despise*" evidently instructing us what the 
sacrifices of God, suited to sincere penitence, really are, and, of 
course, what the Levitical sacrifices represented : namely, a state 
of the thoughts and affections in which man acknowledges, in deep 
humility, his own unworthiness. Accordingly, Jehovah says by 
the prophet, in a passage which is repeatedly quoted by the Lord 
in the gospel, " I desired mercy, and not sacrifice ; and the know- 
ledge of God rather than burnt-offerings^ :" where it is evident, 
since sacrifices were nevertheless established under the Mosaic dis- 
pensation, that the Divine Reprover means us to understand, that 
outward sacrifices, separate from the dispositions of heart and 
mind intended to be represented by them, cannot be accepted ; and 
that the heavenly graces for which sacrifices were used as symbols, 
are mercy or love, and the knowledge of God or a living faith in 
him. Similar is the doctrine of the Apostles. Paul says to the 
Romans : " I beseech you brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye 
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto 
God ; which is your reasonable service^ :" where it is evident that 
by a living sacrifice he means a pure life and conversation ; and he 
calls it a reasonable service, to contrast it with the carnal service of 
sacrifices, and to intimate that the latter was an image of the 
former. So he says to the Hebrews : " By him let us offer the 
sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of your lips, 
giving thanks to his name : but to do good and to communicate 
forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." § 
Here praise and doing good, the service of the lips and of the 
actions, are described as sacrifices: evidently shewing, that the 

* Ps. li. 16, 17. f Hos. vi. 6, Matt ix. 13, xii. 7. $ Ch. xii. 1. 

§ Ch. xiii. 15, 16. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 277 

sacrifices of God are the free-will offerings of adoration and love, 
proceeding from heavenly affections and manifested by beneficent 
deeds. How plain is the inference, that the offerings of the Levi- 
tical law must be meant to represent such offerings of the heart 
and mind, — the pure worship of the Lord, flowing from affections 
of love and charity, offered to him as their only source and 
author ! 

As then the outward sacrifices were nothing without the spiritual 
ones of which they were types ; nor, indeed, with them, to those 
whose minds were sufficiently elevated to form just ideas of spiritual 
worship without the help of the carnal figures, as appears from the 
example of David just quoted ; these latter were not given to the 
Israelites of the Divine Will and Appointment, but permitted them 
on account of the hardness of their hearts ; as is evident from the 
passage just adduced from Hosea, and more decidedly from those 
cited above from Jeremiah and Ezekiel.* It has indeed been 
proved by many learned men, that the sacrifices directed in the 
Levitical law, with many other of the customs introduced into that 
law, were not institutions given for the first time by Moses, but 
such as had long before been observed among the eastern nationsf: 
all that was done by Moses respecting them was, to limit the 
animals which might be offered in sacrifice to certain species, and 

* Pp. 244, 245. " I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them, in 
the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt- 
offerings and sacrifices: but this thing I commanded them, saying, Obey my 
voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people ; and walk ye in the 
ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you." (Jer. vii. 
22, 23.) "Because they had not executed my judgments, &c. — Wherefore I 
gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they 
should not live." (Ez. xx. 25.) These words are evidently contrasted with 
Ver. 11. "I gave them my statutes, and shewed them my judgments, which if 
a man do he shall even live in them." The statutes and judgments in or by 
which a man should live (for the particle in the original is the same which, in 
ver. 25, our translators have rendered by,) and which are said to have been 
delivered to the Israelites upon their coming out of Egypt, are clearly the law 
of the decalogue : and the statutes not good, and judgments by which they 
should not live, and which are said to have been given them for their rebellions 
in the wilderness, are as clearly the law of ceremonies. See this fact proved to 
the completest demonstration, and the paltering attempts of Shuckford to evade 
it most entirely overthrown, in Warburton's Div. Leg. B. iv. Sec. 6. 

t See Warburton ubi supra; and Michaelis's Comm. Law of Moses, Art. 3, 
189, &c 



273 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT, 

to prescribe exactly the place, occasions, and manner of offering them. 
Now how may this previous and general use of sacrificial worship 
be reasonably supposed to have originated ? how so reasonably, as 
in a knowledge of that fixed analogy between natural things and 
spiritual, which we have before shewn was extensively possessed in 
the early ages of the world ? The people of those times well knew 
of what affections and sentiments, or of what modes of thinking 
and feeling, the various animals are the proper emblems and re- 
presentative forms : they knew, also, that all genuine worship of 
the Lord essentially consists in an elevation to him of all the affec- 
tions and perceptions of the heart and mind : and they knew that 
to sacrifice the corresponding animals upon an altar dedicated to 
the Lord would be a significant action, powerfully expressive 
of such pure worship. But, it may be asked, could the joining 
of the significative action to the spiritual worship of the heart 
and lips render the latter any more acceptable to the Lord 
than it would be without it ? This cannot well be supposed : 
and we may be sure that while men remained in that state of ele- 
vated intelligence which saw clearly the spiritual things to which 
natural objects answer by analogy, they would not think it neces- 
sary, nor even allowable, to add the representative rite to the 
spiritual reality. Previously to the time of Noah, at least, if it be 
true that the slaughter of animals, even for food, was unknown, 
a rite which required it would surely be deemed unlawful. They 
knew that, as a significative action, it might be expressive of pure 
worship: but they knew also, that the only real part even of 
representative worship must be the offering to the Lord of the 
inward states of mind which the animals represented, and that in 
the slaughter of the animals themselves there was nothing pleasing 
to the Lord, but rather the contrary, as it was attended with suf- 
fering, which, even when inflicted on an animal, is abhorrent from 
the will of Infinite Goodness. So thinks Archbishop Magee ; and 
doubtless he here thinks right, though he draws from the fact the 
opposite conclusion*: and, though he perhaps did not think so 

* Speaking of Abel, he affirms it to be little likely "that he would have resorted 
to that species of action, which, in the eye of reason must have appeared dis- 
pleasing to God, the slaughter of an unoffending animal." On Atonement, &c 
Disc. ii. Hence, taking it for granted, that when Abel " brought of the first- 
lings of his flock, and of the fat thereof, (Gen. iv. 4,) he slew them as burnt-sacri- 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 279 

correctly, he yet expresses as certain a truth, when he affirms that 
the language of the first men " cannot be supposed so defective, in 
those terms that related to the worship of God, as to have rendered 
it necessary to call in the aid of actions to express the sentiment 
of gratitude or sorrow. 5 '* But the very reason why it was not so 
defective, was, because it followed the laws of the analogy between 
spiritual things and natural : whatever idea of a spiritual or divine 
subject they had conceived in their minds, they did not seek for 
abstract metaphysical terms to express it, but painted it to the 
life in terms borrowed from natural objects, of the spiritual rela- 
tions of which they had an intuitive perception. It is related of 
Adam, that the Lord brought unto him every beast of the field 
and every fowl of the air "to see what he would call them ; and 
whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name 
thereoff :" who can suppose that the mere fact of giving verbal 
names to animals is all that is here intended ? Doubtless, they 
are right who infer, that when Adam gave names to all living 
objects he had an intuitive perception of their nature, in all its 
relations: or rather, his knowledge of their nature is the thing 
described in the language of analogy, by the significative action of 
pronouncing their names. Whilst then, in any considerable degree, 
the undefiled worship of the Lord was preserved, and the intuitive 
wisdom of Adam remained, among his posterity, when they con- 
versed of or described such worship, they would borrow images 
from the significant actions which they saw would represent it, and 
would speak of it as of offering, as sacrifices and burnt-offerings, 
animals and the fruits of the earth: and this they would do, 
owing to the peculiar genius of all who lived before the coming 
of the Lord, when a more powerful illumination of the human 
mind was afforded, because such symbolic language would give 
them stronger and fuller ideas of the subject than could be afforded 
by any other medium. But, with them, it went no further, as 
may be concluded from a reference to this custom which we find 

fice, (though the text does not say so,) the learned Archbishop infers, that he 
■was led by an express revelation to do an act, against which his own reason 
and moral sense revolted. But the true nature of Abel's offering may be ga- 
thered from what is advanced above, and will further appear from a vieiv which 
we have to offer in the next Lecture. 

* Ibid. t Gen. ii. 19, 



280 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

in the prophet Hosea, who, as if on purpose to explain this ancient 
style of expression, uses it thus : " So will we render the calves of 
our lips."* With these offerings, then, in the times of which we 
were speaking, mankind were content. They offered to the Lord 
the affections of the heart, represented by the calves and other ani- 
mals used in sacrifices, in their prayers and praises, called by the 
prophet the lips : but without slaughtering the animals themselves : 
and they described their worship in the same terms as would be 
employed in speaking of an animal sacrifice. 

It is easy to see, however, that, in darker ages, this style of 
speech and writing would lead to the abuse of offering animal 
sacrifices themselves: in the same manner as the formation of 
hieroglyphic sculptures, to present to the mind, through the inter- 
vention of natural images, spiritual and divine ideas, led to a far 
more flagrant abuse, the absurdities of image-worship. When a 
generation of grosser minds arose, — of men who were more im- 
mersed in sensual and carnal objects and regards, and who thence 
had not such clear perceptions of the hidden meaning of phrases 
drawn from the Science of Analogies, and of a purely spiritual 
worship, they began to think it necessary actually to put the 
animals to death ; much as the Roman Catholic, to strengthen his 
conceptions, when engaged in devotion, of his redemption by the 
Lord Jesus Christ, thinks it necessary to have a crucifix before his 
eyes. And as they who thus introduced the carnal part of the 
worship, by the help of it retained some idea, or some obscure 
feeling, of what was spiritually represented, the use of actual 
sacrifices was permitted, by Divine Providence, as necessary to 
keep this alive. 

Here then, surely, we have a very propable reason, why sacrifices 
were permitted, and in appearance enjoined, to the children of 
Israel. Properly speaking, as we have already seen, they were not 
enjoined them, since their ancestors were in the custom of using 
them long before ; and the continuance of the practice was per- 
mitted to the Israelites, because they " rebelled against the Lord in 
the wildernessf ;" or, in the language of Jesus Christ, " because of 
the hardness of their hearts." And the moral reason why, under 
certain regulations, they were permitted to the Jews, was, because, 
though their true spiritual reference was not known to that carnal 
• Hos. xiv. 2. f Exod. xx. 13. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 2 SI 

people, they yet were affected by them with a sense of holiness, and 
kept in some kind of worship, of which, without such helps, they 
would have been incapable; at least, if not allowed to worship 
Jehovah with sacrifices, they woidd have worshiped with sacrifices 
Baal and Moloch. But the ultimate reason for the institution of 
sacrifices among the Israelites, was the same as that of their call 
and selection as a peculiar people ; that, from the descriptions and 
precepts relating to this representative worship recorded in the 
Divine Word, future generations, under a dispensation of higher 
light, without returning to the use of the significative actions, 
might learn, by a knowledge of their meaning, how to offer to the 
Lord a purely spiritual worship • a worship that should consist in 
the consecration to Him, at all times, of all the faculties of the heart 
and mind, and in the ascription of this to him, at stated periods, in 
prayers and praises, in their public assemblies. 

(4.) We now, I trust, shall have found a clew, that will unravel 
the mystery of the extensive prevalence, in former ages, of the 
practice of human sacrifices. For from what has been offered it 
will appear, that there may be forms of speaking and writing 
respecting sacred subjects, and of describing them by imagined 
significative actions, which would be exceedingly criminal if reduced 
into practice. We find that, considered as a moral action, the 
slaughter even of animals cannot enter with strict propriety, or any 
otherwise than by permission, into the worship of the Lord; 
although, viewed merely as a significative action, it affords images 
highly expressive for representing his genuine worship. So it is, in 
a much higher degree, when the subject of the sacrifice is considered 
to be a son or a daughter. If the animals allowed to be sacrificed 
were representative of certain principles in the mind of the offerer 
dedicated by him to the Lord ; his own children must be represen- 
tative of principles in his mind connected with him still more closely, 
— more nearly allied to, and indeed identical with, the governing 
motives of all his conduct. They must be significative of the 
proper affections of his own will, the proper conceptions of his own 
understanding ; and these, unless surrendered and consecrated to 
the Lord, would have self alone for their object ; and this, again, if 
suffered to reign, would poison every virtue. For this reason, 
under the representative dispensation of the Jews, all the first-born, 
without exception, were declared to be holy to the Lord : and if 



282 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [lECT. 

the sacrificing of them could be merely a significative and not at the 
same time a moral action, this would, in the fullest manner, convey 
the important spiritual doctrine. On this account it was that 
Abraham, the proper type of the most devoted of the faithful, was 
tried as to his willingness to offer Isaac : he was permitted, as 
noticed above, to go far enough towards the completion of the 
sacrifice fully to shew its holy import as a significant action, though 
he was stopped in time to exclude its enormity as a moral one : 
and the reason assigned by Jehovah for the blessing afterwards 
pronounced upon him, was, " Because thou hast not withheld thy 
son, thine only son."* Thus it is evident^ that, in the language of 
Analogy, to speak of sacrificing children to the Lord only means to 

* Gen. xxii. 16. Much erudition and genius have heen exercised to prove, 
that the sacrifice of Isaac was designed as a representation of that of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. I acknowledge it to have been so : indeed, its applicability to 
that great fact appears too obvious to be overlooked by any one. But, taking 
the representation under this relation, what part does Abraham sustain in it ? 
Is he a type of "the Father" of the New Testament, as Isaac is of " the Son?" 
This is a conclusion, which, according to the common mode of understanding 
the transaction, seems impossible to be avoided;. Even Warburton is con- 
strained to admit it : though he considers the whole to be specially intended 
to instruct Abraham in the mystery of the Redemption, he cannot help repre- 
senting the patriarch as standing in a relation of analogy to the Father : thus 
he says, that " God to instruct him (in the best manner humanity is capable 
of receiving instruction) in the infinite extent of divine goodness to mankind, 
' who spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all,' [Rom. viii. 32] 
let Abraham feel, by experience, what it was to lose a beloved son." [D. Leg. 
B. vi. Sec. 5.] But how monstrous is such an idea! The relation begins 
with informing us, (ver. 1,) that " God did tempt Abraham :" if then Abraham 
represents the Father of Jesus Christ ; — who is the being here denominated 
God ? And was the Father himself tempted in the death of Jesus Christ ? 
and by Himself? And is it of himself that he here says, " By myself have I 
sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not with- 
held thy son, thine only son : that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multi-* 
plying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which 
is upon the sea shore ;" &c [ver. 16, 17.] Evidently, in this view of the 
matter, there is an utter want of parallelism between the type and the anti- 
type, and the whole is replete with inconsistencies. But consider Abraham 
himself as the principal type of the Lord Jesus Christ in the transaction ; and 
admit that in typical language different persons may be mentioned to represent, 
not different beings, but different principles in the same being, whether in God 
or in man ; and all difficulties vanish. Abraham is the only agent : it is he 
who surrenders and is about to sacrifice Isaac, who is quite passive ; and he 
acts in the affair by the command of God : thus the circumstances of the whole 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 283 

devote to him the nearest and inmost affections of the heart. As a 
significant action, and when suffered to go no farther than to words 
or signs, the sacrifice of children was clearly representative of 
some thing pre-eminently holy. The reason is, because, in this 
point of view, the children are not regarded as possessing any 
thing, not even life, as their own, but are considered as if they were 
the absolute property of their parents ; — merely as something most 
dear to them, and which they are to dedicate to the Lord as an 
acknowledgment that all good is from him, and of right is to be 
ascribed to him. No doubt then, among the ancients, who were 
acquainted with the relation that natural things bear to spiritual, and 
whose ordinary language was, to a great degree at least, formed upon 
that relation, whence they used to speak of sacrifices in their conver- 
become exactly parallel to those of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, as stated in his 
own words. He says of himself, U I lay down my life for the sheep. — No man 
taketh it from me, hut / lay it down of myself i I have power to lay it down, 
and I have power to take it again : this commandment have I received of my 
Father." [John x. 15, 18.] Abraham then represents that principle in the 
Lord Jesus Christ which says, "I lay down my life of myself:" Isaac is the 
life laid down, — the life of the human nature : and "God" is " the Father," — 
the Divine Essence Itself, — whose love was the moving cause of man's redemp- 
tion. The life which Jesus Christ says he has " power to take again," is also 
the life of his human nature glorified at his resurrection, which is represented 
by the restoration of Isaac to Abraham, as it were "from the dead; from 
whence also he received him in a figure." [Heb. xi. 19.] Thus the whole be^ 
comes consistent, even to the blessing pronounced upon Abraham for his 
obedience ; which refers to the salvation of man in consequence of the assump- 
tion by the Lord of the human nature, his laying down of the life of it, and 
his taking of it again in a glorified state, and thence imparting the gifts of the 
spirit : [John vii. 39,] his seed who should be multiplied are the church of his 
faithful followers ; or those, to whom he thus " gave power to become the sons 
of God, even they that believe on his name." [John i. 12.] 

But the reference of this type, in its highest application, to the Lord Jesus 
Christ, does not exclude it from having a secondary reference to his faithful 
disciples. As observed in the text above, we are required to follow him: we 
are required to drink of the same cup, and to be baptized with the same bap- 
tism ; as he said to James and John : " Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that 
I drink of, and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be bap- 
tized:" [Mark x. 39:] whence the Apostle declares, "We are buried with 
him by baptism unto death : that like as Christ was raised up from the dead 
by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." 
[Rom. vi. 4. ] It is doubtless, then, true, that Abraham is a type of the most 
faithful of the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ as well as of himself ; and in this 
reference the sacrifice of Isaac must bear the meaning stated in the text above. 



2S^ PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

sation and writings which they never thought of performing accord- 
ing to the letter, the sacrifice of children would often be mentioned : 
and hence arose the abuse : for their ignorant and corrupt descend- 
ants at length proceeded to the act. This must necessarily be in 
the highest degree profane : because here the moral nature of the 
action interferes, and totally changes the character of the significa- 
tive. For although, in one point of view, children may be considered 
merely in their relation to their parents, and thus as their property; 
yet are they also human beings themselves, having a life distinct 
from that of their parents, and being, or at least in preparation for 
becoming, independent moral agents : hence to kill them is murder 
of the worst kind : and hence the act of sacrificing them, instead of 
representing the hallowing of the inmost affections to the Lord, 
represents the direct contrary, — the privation of all spiritual life in 
the affections with which the man is most closely identified, and, in 
fact, the substitution in the heart of the love of evil for the love of 
good ; which is equivalent to the worship of demons instead of God. 

It surely cannot be difficult to see, that all this is grounded, not 
in any fanciful, but in a most certain and determinate analogy. A 
few words will now suffice, to apply these principles to the 
apparent sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter. 

(5.) It has been shewn in our last Lecture, that the people 
or nations who occupied the countries surrounding the land of 
Canaan, are all representative of moral and intellectual principles 
more or less connected with, or opposed to, those which constitute 
the church in the human mind; and, less abstractedly, of those 
classes of persons who make such principles their predominant 
and influencing motives* One of the nations was that of the 
Ammonites: and it would be both a curious and interesting 
inquiry, to endeavour to ascertain, of what specific principle, and 
class of persons, connected with the church, they were the represen- 
tatives; but to render the inquiry satisfactory, it would demand 
more space than we can now spare ; and it is not necessary to the 
immediate object before us. Suffice it to say, that it is a principle, 
as appears from the chapter of Judges detailing the history of 
Jephthah and his daughter, which not only infests the church, 
represented by the Ammonites overrunning the land, but claims a 
legitimate right to it*; and which, though clearly confuted from 
* Ver. 13. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 285 

the Word of God*, does not recede from its pretension s.f But, 
what throws more light upon Jephthah's vow, it is a principle, the 
abstract idea of which is typified by the fancied deity who was 
particularly worshiped by the sacrifice of children, — the horrid 

Moloch : 

" Him the Ammonite 

"Worship'd in Eabbah and her wat'ry plain, 
In Argob and in Basan, to the stream 
Of utmost Arnon." 

Thus Moloch is emphatically called in Scripture, " the abomi- 
nation of the children of Ammon."| It is true that in Jephthah's 
remonstrance, Chemosh is mentioned as their God§ ; who was 
properly the idol of the Moabites|| : but the Moabites and the 
Ammonites are often considered as one people : and Chemosh, also, 
was worshiped by the sacrifice of children ; as is evident from the 
conduct of his proper votary, the king of Moab, who " took his 
eldest son, that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him 
for a burnt-offering upon the wall."^[ Now the occasion upon 
which Jephthah uttered his vow, was, when he was about to engage 
in mortal conflict with, this nation of sacrificers of their children. 
Consider this conflict as representative of that which takes place 
in the mind, when any evil attachment that has taken deep root 
there is to be ejected. Every one must be aware that no evil can 
be successfully combated but from the opposite good, from a desire 
for it, and an inward attachment to it : who then does not see, 
that when the evil to be removed is that of which the Ammonites 
were types, and which was appropriately represented by the actual 
sacrifice of their sons and daughters to Moloch or Chemosh, the 
significant action most proper to represent the opposite good would 
be, an apparent sacrifice of a son or daughter to Jehovah ? 

This then appears to be the true design of this extraordinary 
transaction : only one or two more of its circumstances need be 
noticed. No evil, as has just been intimated, can ever be entirely 
removed, till the mind is made completely willing to relinquish it : 
and this willingness manifests the presence of an opposite good ; 
and is such, in fact, itself. It is, however, seldom produced but in 
a state of deep inward trial : this, therefore, is appropriately repre- 

• Ver. 15 to 27. f Ver. 28. % 1 Kings xi. 7. § Jud. xi. 24. 
U 1 Kings xi, 7 ; Num. xxi. 29. % 2 Kings iil 27. 



286 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

sented by the anxiety respecting the issue of the battle which 
engrossed the feelings of Jephthah when he made his vow, and 
which he describes by the strong figure of " putting his life in his 
hands*;" and his vow as strongly breathes the willingness itself. 
And that resolutions of relinquishment and of dedication, made in 
a season of trial, are not to be receded from when it is over, is 
signified by Jephthah's perseverance in performing, ** when he re* 
turned in peace from the children of Ammon," that which he had 
vowed in the hour of jeopardy. 

When, however, we speak of Jephthah's perseverance in per* 
forming his vow, we mean, his perseverance such as it appears 
upon the face of the narration; but that this extended to the actual 
sacrificing of his daughter, cannot, I think, be supposed, Here, as 
before observed, the moral character of the action would interfere, 
and would, beside being so horrible in itself, entirely vitiate the 
significative, Upon the supposition, however, that she was sacri* 
ficed, (the fault of which, we have before seen, would lie entirely in 
the ignorance of the parties,) as all mention of the actual perpetra* 
tion of the deed is avoided, the signification of the transaction, as 
it stands in the record, would not be altered. But, no doubt, the 
execution was prevented,-r-probably in one of the ways which the 
commentators have supposed ; but as, in the history, the merely 
significative action is all that is intended for consideration ; there* 
fore the narrative is so constructed as to lead to the conclusion that 
the sacrifice took place. 

And surely the reason which we have alleged for the narrative's 
bearing such a construction, must be seen to be amply sufficient. 
That the only instance in the Israelitish history which presents the 
appearance of the sacrifice of a child having been vowed or per- 
formed by a leader favoured of God, should occur where the object 
of it was to obtain divine aid against a nation of sacrificers of their 
children, must have struck all who ever remarked it, as a very 
extraordinary co-incidence : how can it be accounted for, but by 
the analogy which we have endeavoured to point out, on the one 
hand, between the real sacrifice of a child to an idol and the devo- 
tion of the nearest affections of the mind to the love of evil, and, 
on the other, between the apparent sacrifice of a child to God and 
the devotion of the inmost affections to the love of good ; whence 
* Ch. xii. 3. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 287 

the one constitutes the proper opposite, and depicts the proper 
antidote, of the other? Thus the narrative becomes eminently 
illustrative of the true character of the Israelitish history; it 
strongly confirms the fact, that that history is of a representative 
character throughout ; and it exhibits the necessity of calling in the 
Science of Analogies for its elucidation, and for clearing up the 
difficulties with which the letter, regarded by itself, often appears 
perplexed. 

We have dwelt at considerable length upon the import, when 
decyphered by the Science of Analogies, of the capture of Jericho 
and of Jephthah's vow, because they afforded opportunities of illus- 
trating some important truths of a general nature, which tend to 
throw considerable light upon the whole of the subject under 
inquiry : but, to prevent this work from extending too far beyond 
the moderate dimensions which it seems advisable to observe, we 
must confine our explanation of the examples still to be offered 
nearly within the limits of a simple statement. 

3. The combat between David and Goliath, related in 1 Samuel, 
ch. xvii., bears so many marks of its representative character on the 
face of the narrative, that many expositors have felt that something 
was intended by it beyond a mere relation of historical facts. 

The victory obtained by a youth, represented as a mere child, 
with a sling and a pebble from the brook, over a professed cham- 
pion above nine feet in stature and armed at all points, has gene- 
rally been considered as symbolizing, in a very expressive manner, 
the superiority of divine dependance over self-confidence ; and un* 
doubtedly this is the general meaning of the history. The Philis- 
tines, we have stated in a former Lecture*, represent, in the Word, 
those who profess to belong to the church, and who have an exten- 
sive knowledge of sacred subjects, but yet give themselves no con- 
cern about bringing knowledge into practice, about uniting their 
faith with charity ; and who even proceed so far as to affirm, that 
salvation depends upon faith alone. In all ages, and in all 
churches, there have been professors of this description, and we 
know that there is a large body of them at the present day, some 
of whom even go to the extent of affirming, that they who embrace 
* Page 108. 



288 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

the gospel are freed from the necessity of observing the law. Now, 
as to apply the knowledge of salvation by Jesus Christ to so im- 
pure a heresy as this, is deeply to defile it, therefore the Philistines 
are often called in Scripture, by way of reproach, the u?ici?'ciimcised, 
that term denoting those who are in all the uncleanness of the un- 
purified lusts of the natural man. That epithet is, indeed, in a 
great measure appropriated to them : Thus David says, in the his- 
tory before us, " Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he 
should defy the armies of the living God?"* The wars, then, 
between the Philistines and the Israelites, were symbolic of the 
contests for supremacy in the church between this doctrine, and 
that of faith in union with charity. Giants, when mentioned in 
Scripture, always denote those who are in strong persuasion of 
their superior power and intelligence, and who are deeply grounded 
in pride and self-conceit ; as is generally the case with those who 
are in the persuasion that they are the peculiar favourites of heaven, 
accepted on account of their faith, but whose natural lusts are at 
the same time unsubdued ;— especially those who never reflect 
upon sin in themselves, and conceive that the justification which 
they have received makes it impossible for them to commit any;— 
or, in other words, that whatever they may commit does not ap- 
pear in the sight of God. The armour wherein the Philistine 
trusted, affords a suitable image of the false reasonings, and per- 
versions of truth, by which such persons confirm themselves in 
their erroneous persuasions. David, on the contrary, is generally 
allowed to represent, in the highest sense, the Lord Jesus Christ, 
as to that principle in his nature whereby, when in the world, he 
combated against and subdued the infernal powers which held man 
in bondage; and hence, derivatively, he represents the faithful 
member of the church, who engages in spiritual conflicts in an 
humble dependence on the Lord alone. The smooth stones from 
the brook, are the pure truths of the Divine Word, applied, with 
the proper power, to detect the fallacies by which they who cherish 
faith without charity support their cause ; and the stone smote the 
enemy in his forehead, to denote, that the very first and leading 
principle of the system of doctrine which makes every thing to 
depend upon faith, — the sentiment which forms the head of all the 

* Ver. 26. See also ver. 36 ; and Jud. xiv. 3, xv. 18 ; 1 Sam. xiv. 6, 
xxxi. 4 ; 2 Sam. L 20. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 289 

rest, — is discovered at once to be erroneous, when contrasted with 
any of the plain declarations of Scripture which express the senti- 
ment, " Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which 
I say?"* 

I am fully satisfied that most of these interpretations could be 
proved, with a weight of evidence which it would be difficult to 
resist, to be founded in the immutable Relation of Analogy which 
subsists by creation between all natural objects and certain spiritual 
counterparts ; and that all of them might be demonstrated, by a 
sufficiently extensive collation of other passages of Scripture, to be 
those which, in the Divine Word, every where belong to these 
symbols: but, for the reason stated above, we leave them, thus 
nakedly propounded, for the lovers of truth to examine for them- 
selves. 

4. The same remark will be applicable to the explanation which 
we here will offer on some of the circumstances attending the Cru- 
cifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

It is usual to regard the circumstances of insult and cruelty 
which marked the manner in which Jesus laid down his life, as 
affording strong marks of that depravity and corruption of the 
human heart, which could excite any who called themselves men, 
especially any who believed themselves to be the elect people of 
God, to act with such savage malice towards a being, who, even if 
not acknowledged to be God incarnate, must be venerated by every 
impartial mind as the most unoffending, most amiable, most bene- 
ficent, most perfect of men. But this view of the subject, though 
just, does not go far enough. Not only were all the circumstances, 
generally, expressive of this deep depravity, but every thing that 
is recorded, even to the most minute, has a distinct spiritual sig- 
nification. 

All Christians admit, that the Lord Jesus Christ is " the Word 
of Godf," which is the same thing as the Divine Truth itself; 
whence we read that "the Word was made flesh." | It was also 
shewn in our last Lecture, that whenever Jesus himself speaks of 
his approaching passion, he speaks of it as being to be suffered by 
" the Son of man ;" because " the Son of man" is a title always 
applied to him in reference to his character as the Divine Truth or 
* Luke vi 46. t Rev. xix. 13. $ John i. 14. 

13 



290 PLENAUY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

Word.* He suffered then in his character of the Word ; and 
hence, by all the indignities to which he submitted, was repre- 
sented the manner in which the Word was treated by the Jewish 
Church in its state of utter debasement : and, in fact, the manner 
in which the Word is treated in every Church, when it has de- 
parted from every thing which gives to a church its title to the 
name. The Lord was betrayed by Judas f, because Judas repre- 
sents the very lowest principle in the constitution of fallen human 
nature — that of mere selfishness, — that which is identified as man's 
proper own, considered as exclusive of every thing that he receives 
from God : and as this principle reigned with the Jewish nation, 
who were at that time the depositaries of the Word, of them, also, 
Judas was a type. The chief priests and elders, being the leading 
characters of the Jewish church, may be viewed as personifying its 
ruling sentiments in regard to charity and faith ; and these being 
contrary to the love of God and to all genuine faith, and thus such 
as reject and destroy the truth of the Word, it was by the chief 
priests and elders that the Son of man was apprehended and first 
condemned |; and his being afterwards condemned by Pilate, who 
was a gentile, at their accusation and instigation §, shews how the 
Word is rejected by those who do not profess to belong to the 
church, but merely to follow the law of nature, because they receive 
their ideas of it from the misrepresentations of those who call 
themselves the church, and whom they regard as the proper judges 
of such a subject || : as, also, they whose minds are not pre-occu- 
pied with the false doctrines of a corrupt church see many things 
by the light of nature which are in agreement with the truth of the 
Word ; and as they, likewise, are always loud in their professions 
of regard for the truth abstractedly; therefore Pilate had such 
strong misgivings on the occasion. The Lord's being scourged 
and smitten on the head with a reed«[, were exact figures of the 
treatment which the Word receives from those who reject it : and 
as a crown is an emblem of wisdom, and thorns of pernicious 
false sentiments, his being crowned with thorns** expressively 
symbolized the manner in which the wisdom of the Word is falsi- 
fied and perverted. The dividing of his outer garments into four 

* P. 188. f Matt. xxvi. 47. J Matt. xxvi. 47, 66. 

§ Ch. xxvii. 12, 23. || John xviii. 35. 

% Matt, xxvii. 26, 30. ** Ver. 2D. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 291 

parts among the soldiers* was indicative of the complete dissipa- 
tion of the truths of the letter of the Word ; but the preserving of 
his vesture or inner garment entire, represented that its spiritual 
sense could not be thus injured, being sheltered from common 
observation ; and their casting lots for it, afforded an apt image 
of the conjecture and debate of which the spiritual sense, or, what 
is the same thing, the truth itself, becomes the subject, when all 
right understanding of the Word is lost. Without some such 
meaning, is it reasonable to suppose that such, in themselves, 
trivial circumstances, would have been recorded ? and not only so, 
but that they should long before have been expressly foretold ? f 
Their crucifying him fully expressed that the church had profaned 
and destroyed the whole of the Word. Their offering him vinegar 
to drink mingled with gall|, exhibited, by an apt symbol, that all 
their ideas of truth were false, all the truths they possessed being 
falsified from the influence of their depraved lusts ; truth falsified 
bearing the same relation to genuine truth as vinegar does to wine, 
and its mixture with gall implying defilement from grievous evils ; 
wherefore he would not drink it : but afterwards, when, on occa- 
sion of his saying " I thirst," they gave him simple vinegar, the 
sponge containing it being put upon hyssop, he received it § ; 
because this represented such erroneous sentiments as are grounded, 
not in evil and the intentional perversion of truth, but in igno- 
rance, such as prevailed among the gentiles, who afterwards were 
taken to form the church instead of the Jews : — hyssop, and other 
bitter herbs, were symbolic of purification : the Lord's thirst is his 
ardent desire for the salvation of mankind, through their reception 
of his life-giving Word. 

This explanation is applied to the treatment of the Lord and his 
Word by the Jewish Church : but the circumstances will equally 
suit the manner in which he is treated by mankind individually, 
whose selfish nature thus treats the Lord and his Word at all times. 
Indeed, as the Jewish Church, which was entirely a representative 
one, represents, in its state of integrity, the true church of the 
Lord, both generally, and as formed in the heart of the individual 
who professes to belong to it ; so in its state of perversion it was 
symbolic of the mere selfish nature of man ; and its treatment of 

* John xix. 23, 24. f Ps. xxii. 18. Matt, xxvii. 34 

§ John xix. 28, 29, 30. 



292 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

the Lord depicts the manner in which man regards the Lord, 
and the divine truths of his Word, when he views them under the 
influence of his selfish nature alone. 

Now whether or not, without further explanation, the circum- 
stances we have noticed may be seen to bear the exact signification 
which has been offered, is probably doubtful; yet that they 
certainly carry some signification, and are recorded to intimate 
some spiritual instruction, is surely obvious upon the face of them. 
To me, at least, after the most impartial examination that I am 
able to give the subject, it appears so evident, that, without the 
slightest wish to think harshly of those who entertain the opposite 
opinion, I can only impute the existence of an opposite opinion to 
the want of a sufficiently careful and candid examination. To 
deny the spiritual import of this part of the Word of God, after 
serious consideration, appears to me to demand, not merely a large 
share of the negative principle of incredulity, but of a positive 
principle of credulity ; of a principle that can believe any incon- 
sistency, provided it be requisite to support one species of con- 
sistency ; — that which assumes, prior to the examination of 
evidence, that, nothing spiritual can be contained in the Scriptures, 
and which is determined to maintain this assumption, let the pre- 
sumptions to the contrary become ever so numerous and con- 
clusive. Even Pilate could listen, with respect, to the Lord's 
avowal, that he was a king whose kingdom was not of this world ; 
and to his declaration, that "every one that is of the truth heareth 
his voice* :" and surely every thing that is recorded, by the pen of 
inspiration, of the actions or treatment of such a king, must relate 
to him as the king of this spiritual kingdom, and must either treat, 
directly, of the kingdom which is not of this world, or of the 
manner in which it is received among men. In such persons as 
Pilate is a type of, it might not be inconsistent to refuse to listen 
to such a plea : but when those who profess to be the true subjects 
of "the King of the Jews" would confine the circumstances of his 
history to this world only, do they not allow the supremacy of the 
worldly principle rather than of the heavenly one. and partake of 
the spirit which exclaimed, " We have no king but Caesar ?"f As 
is observed in another part of this work:j: ; if the Lord Jesus. Christ 
had really a divine nature within him, then not only must all his 
* John xviii. 3G, 37. f Ch. six. 15. % App. No. II. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 203 

words, but all his actions too, have flowed according to the order 
in which divine and spiritual things descend into natural, and thus 
must have been expressions of spiritual and divine ideas: nor 
could any thing be done to him, or suffered by him, without being 
brought within the same order : and thus, in every thing recorded 
of him, weighty instruction must be included, though conveyed by 
actions instead of words. To admit that the record of these trans- 
actions is the Word of God, is to afnrni a truth ; but to insist that 
it is to be understood according to the letter alone, is (, may I be 
pardoned for the assertion ?) to falsify that truth : assuredly, it is 
turning the wine into vinegar : but whether the vinegar thus pro- 
duced be that mingled with gall, or that corrected with hyssop, 
depends upon the inward disposition of the parties preparing it, 
and their means of information. 

IV. Nearly related to those parts of the Word of God which, 
in their form, are strictly historical, are those which detail the 
rituals of the Ceremonial Law : and that these were intended to 
shadow out spiritual realities, is so obvious a truth, that it has 
generally been received among Christians as unquestionable :*— un- 
questionable it certainly is, by all who believe that the Apostle 
Paul had any knowledge of the subject, since his declarations 
respecting it are too positive to be by any means evaded. Indeed, 
an enlarged consideration of this part of our subject, where proof 
would be so easy, would perhaps, more directly than any thing- 
else, afford certain evidence of the spiritual nature of the Word of 
God. But it seems scarcely necessary to go into the demonstra- 
tion of a fact, which every Christian is obliged to believe by the 
authoritative documents of his faith ; and which even the Deist 
must admit to be the only rational account of the origin of cere- 
monial worship. Certain it is, that, in the early ages of the world, 
ceremonial worship was practised, if not by all, by the most 
enlightened and polished nations : and can any maintain such a 
paradox as to affirm, that this general consent of the most intelli- 
gent of mankind in the use of such worship, had no origin but 
chance ? Is it not far more reasonable to believe, that it had some 
reasonable foundation? And what so reasonable as to conclude, 
that because the primeval inhabitants of the globe had an intuitive 
perception of the relation of Analogy existing from creation 



294 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

between spiritual objects and natural, men at length, began to 
assist their conceptions of the former by appropriate applications 
of the latter ? 

1. That such was the origin, in particular, of the use of Sacri- 
fices in worship, must, we should apprehend, at least appeal- 
highly probable, from the remarks which we have advanced upon 
the subject in our consideration of Jephthah's vow, where we anti- 
cipated most of what we think necessary to offer respecting it.* 
It is perfectly evident, from various parts of the Scripture, that the 
sacrifices offered upon the altar, as also the shew-bread set out 
upon the table in the sanctuary, were considered, strange as it may 
appear to our ideas, as food offered to the Divine Majesty. Indeed, 
whatever was put upon the altar, whether consisting of flesh or 
flour, is frequently called, in one word, bread ; according to the 
known use of the Hebrew lansrua^e, which often uses the term bread 
ion food in general. Hence it is expressly said of the priests, that 
they offered, and also themselves partook of, the bread of God.f 
So the parts of the lamb or goat for the peace-offering which were 
consumed upon the altar, are explicitly called by our translators, 
" the food of the offering made by fire unto the Lord ;" and " the 
food of the offering made by fire for a siceet savour% :" and the idea 
of the agreeable scent of roasted food, is applied to the whole 
burnt-offerings, whether of bullocks, sheep, or doves, each of which 
is called " an offering made by fire, of a siceet savour, unto the 
Lord§:" as also are the offerings of flour, baked or unbaked. || The 
same ideas are used by Jehovah himself, when, reproaching by the 
prophet the Israelites for their " abominations," he says, " Ye 
have brought strangers, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised 
in flesh, to be in my sanctuary to pollute it, even my house, when 
ye offer my bread, the fat and the bloody :" and by another prophet, 
still more particularly, the same Divine Speaker says, " Ye offer 
polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we 
polluted thee ? In that ye say, The table of the Lord is con- 
temptible. And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil ? 

* Page 274 — 2S0. See also tlie remarks on the signification of animals at 
p. 87, &c. and 167, &c. 

t Lev. xxi. 6, 8, 17, 21, 22 ; Ch. xxii. 25. % Ch. Hi. 11, 16. 

§ Ch. i. 9, 13, 17. || Ch. ii. 2, 0. % Ezek. xliv. 7. 



V.] TIIE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 295 

and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil ? — But ye have pro- 
faned it, in that ye say, The table of the Lord is polluted, and the 
fruit thereof, even his meat, is contemptible."* It is impossible 
for any fact to be more explicitly stated : the altar is considered, 
by God himself, as his table, and the things offered upon it as his 
meat. For what purpose then was meat thus presented to him ? 
The natural idea evidently is, to satisfy the divine hunger. But 
is the divine hunger such as can feed upon the things burnt upon 
the altar themselves? He himself declares plainly, that if he 
were subject to such hunger, he would not be dependent upon man 
for satisfying it : " If I were hungry, I would not tell thee : for 
the world is mine, and the fulness thereof : Will I eat the flesh of 
bulls, or drink the blood of goats ?"f What else then is man to 
present, which Deity can appetite ? Himself, continuing the same 
earnest address, informs us : " Offer unto God thanksgiving, and 
pay thy vows unto the Most High ; and call upon me in the day of 
trouble : I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me."| How 
evident then is it, that the flesh of bulls and the blood of goats, 
with the other elements of sacrificial worship, are the symbols of 
the worship of thanksgiving, vows, and invocation ; which, again, 
are only sincere as they proceed from love, charity, and faith ; and 
thus that, properly, the things presented upon the altar were natural 
images, answering, by a just analogy, to all the spiritual graces, 
by and from which an acceptable worship can be offered to the 
Most High ! What then can the divine hunger be, which requires 
to be fed with such food as this ? What, but, like the thirst of 
Jesus Christ, as noticed above, the ardent desire with which 
Divine Love yearns for man's salvation, and which is satisfied in 
proportion as man receives from God the graces which bring sal- 
vation ; for the obtaining of which the spiritual worship of God is 
an indispensable medium; and of the possession of which, such 
worship as gratefully ascribes them all to him, is both a con- 
sequence and a sign? The spiritual idea of hunger is plainly 
intimated, when the Lord says, " Blessed are they that hunger and 
thirst after righteousness"^ By a clear analogy, as natural hunger 
is an appetite for food, and natural thirst an appetite for drink, so 
spiritual hunger is a desire for good, and spiritual thirst a desire 

* Mai. i. 7, 8, 12, f Ps. 1. 12, 13. % Ver. 14, 15. 

§ Matt. v. 6, 



296 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

for truth ; and divine hunger and thirst can be no other than the 
Lord's desire, that the goodness and truth of which he is the 
Author, might find an abode in the heart and mind of man, and be 
returned him again in the ascriptions of genuine worship. 

2. Nearly related to the worship of the Lord by the sacrifice of 
animals, and to the precepts respecting the species of annuals 
which might be employed in such worship, is the law delivered in 
Leviticus xi. and Deut. xiv. relating to the species of animals 
which might or might not be used as articles of food. If, as seems 
so evident, all living creatures are forms expressive of particular 
affections and modes of thinking that live in the human breast ; 
and if the nourishment of the body answers by an exact analogy to 
the nourishment of the mind; it cannot be extraordinary, that, 
under a representative dispensation, precise directions should be 
given upon this subject. By this law then, in general, is taught, 
how careful man should be respecting what sort of affections he 
appropriates in his will, and what sort of sentiments he adopts in 
his understanding : and the rules laid down for distinguishing the 
unclean creatures from the clean, delineate the criteria for discri- 
minating between evil affections and good ones, mischievous 
sentiments and beneficial. As, however, this would open to us 
a very extensive field of investigation, this slight notice of it must 
suffice. 

3. But under the Isrnelitish dispensation there were other cere- 
monial observances, beside those which related either to the bread 
of God or to the food of man. One of the most remarkable of 
these was the vow of the Nazarite, the law of which is prescribed 
in Num. vi. The chief regulations of it were, that the subject of 
the vow, during its continuance, was to drink no wine, " and eat 
nothing that is made of the vine-tree, from the kernels even to the 
husk ;" and no razor was to come upon his head. At the termi- 
nation of the period for which he was set apart, the length of 
which is not defined, he was to offer a burnt-offering, a sin-offer- 
ing, a peace-offering, a meat-offering, and a drink-offering ; and he 
was then to shave his head, and put the hair in the fire under the 
sacrifice of the peace-offering : after which he was at liberty to 
drink wine. Both Samson and Samuel were Nazarites for life, by 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 297 

appointment and dedication before they were born*; and from the 
growth of his hair in this consecrated state, the former derived his 
great strength. f Surely, then, the Scriptures must mean us to 
infer, that the Nazariteship was representative of a state eminently 
holy; and what that state is, the circumstances, considered as 
speaking the language of Analogy, very clearly designate. 

There are in the Scriptures numerous intimations respecting two 
sorts of characters belonging to the church, — those who act more 
under the influence of good or love, and those who act more under 
the influence of truth or faith. The former apply the command- 
ments of the Word immediately to life and practice, without think- 
ing or reasoning upon them ; and they hence acquire an intuitive 
perception of truth, which the Lord refers to when he says, " Let 
your communication be Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is 
more than these cometh of evil! :" the latter take too much plea- 
sure in the " whatsoever is more than these," to be satisfied with 
so short a road to wisdom : they love the exercise of thought and 
reasoning : they scarcely regard truth itself as valuable, but as it 
is the object of these faculties : they have, however, an ardent love 
of truth ; but their love of goodness is rather a regard to what they 
see to be the dictates of truth. Now of truth, and of the good 
which is the result of a love of truth, the vine and its productions 
are, in the Word, eminent types ; as are the olive and its products 
of the higher love of good. That they who would obtain the 
proper love of good, should aim at it at once, and not amuse 
themselves too far with the lower love of truth, is then what is 
meant by the prohibition to the Nazarites of the use of wine or 
the other products of the vine ; it is, in fact, the same precept as 
is delivered by Jesus Christ in plainer terms, when he says, "Let 
your communication be Yea, yea; Nay, nay." Nevertheless, 
though they do not make truth their study, they enjoy, by virtue 
of their love of good, an intuitive knowledge of all truth ; accord- 
ing to that other divine saying, " If any man will do \willetk to 
do] his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God."§ 
They have, on every occasion, a perception of the truth or false- 
hood of every suggestion presented to them ; and in the combats 
of temptation they apply their Yea, yea, or Nay, nay, with a power, 

* Jud. xiii. 5, 7. 1 Sam. i. 11. f Jud. xvi. 17. % Matt. v. 37. 

§ John vii. 17. 



293 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

which they who are in evil and error, and all the tempting forces, 
are unable to resist. Of this power of the true Nazarite, the 
extraordinary strength of Samson was a symbol. And as the 
greatest power of truth lies in its lowest manifestation — or the 
strength of Jehovah is in the clouds* ; and as the hair, being the 
extreme part of the bodily frame, denotes the extreme part of the 
mental constitution, — the ultimate of all, — the immediate seat of 
the senses and corporeal appetites ; and as when divine goodness 
and truth possess these they possess the whole man, — and they do 
possess even these with those who are principled in the proper love 
of good; — therefore the Nazarites were commanded not to cut 
their hair; and Samson declared that in his hair his great 
strength resided. As they who have persevered the full period in 
the kind of life which this vow symbolizes, become regenerate 
through all their mind, and every principle of their constitution at 
length spontaneously rises in the worship of the Lord ; this was 
represented by the Nazarite's offering, when the days of his sepa- 
ration were fulfilled, sacrifices of all the kinds directed by the 
Levitical law. His then consuming his hair in the fire of the altar, 
was expressive of the complete renewal of the very ultimate prin- 
ciple of his constitution, of which the hair is the type, so that there 
remains no longer any thing of self in it, but the whole is dedi- 
cated to the Lord. And his being at liberty afterwards to drink 
wine, signifies, that all the recreation and delight that truth can 
afford are then free to him also ; as to him %oho seeks first the 
kingdom, of God and his righteousness, all inferior things are given 
in addition.^ 

These are very holy and interior subjects; and, for that very 
reason, it is to be expected that they will only excite the scorn of 
those, (should any of that character give them a moment's notice,) 
who regard nothing but what their corporeal senses dictate. We 
are warned by divine authority of the consequences of presenting 
the holy things of celestial good to dogs, and the pure pearls of 
spiritual truth to swine. Probably, also, to many of better dispo- 
sitions, but who raise their views with reluctance above the pre- 
cincts of nature, such matters will appear too remote from ordinary 

* See App. No. IV. 

f Matt. vi. 33. The same subject is illustrated by the obedience of the 
Eechabites : Jer. sxxv. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 299 

^apprehension to deserve much attention; they will regard them, 
as the rustic regards the nebulas in the galaxy of heaven, — as films 
not more important than those formed by the exhalations of the 
marsh ; whilst by the votary of true science they are contemplated 
with delight mixed with awe, and are regarded, not merely as suns, 
but as systems of suns, dispensing the beams of light and life to 
numberless unseen worlds. The truth of the doctrine deduced 
from this mysterious ceremony, whether it be seen to be taught by 
the ceremony or not, may, however, be readily appreciated. As* 
suredly, every breast that has ever glowed with one touch of pure^ 
disinterested affection, — which has ever been warmed with one 
feeling of which the high name of goodness may justly be predi- 
cated, — must have felt how, when placed in contrast, the corusca- 
tions of the brightest intellect, the most exalted views of truth, 
admirable and excellent as these, also, nevertheless, are, sink into 
shade. He will naturally then expect, that of a fact so important, 
some decided intimation's would be given in a book which is really 
the Word of God ; and if he knows that the Word of God must 
necessarily be written by the aid of natural images ; and is aware, 
also, that the Jewish nation was selected for the purpose of repre- 
senting heavenly things by symbolic actions ; he will expect to find 
the subject somewhere shadowed out among the rituals of their 
law. When thus prepared, if possessed, in addition, of some ac- 
quaintance with the language of Analogies, he will easily recognise 
a beautiful representation of it in the Law of the Nazarite. 

4. Finally, we are to notice the ceremonial observances which 
are retained among Christians: and that some are retained, by 
divine appointment, under the spiritual dispensation of the gospel, 
is an argument, surely, that spiritual things are included in them ; 
and, by consequence, that spiritual things were represented in the 
ceremonies of the Jewish Church, of which they are a remnant and 
epitome. 

There are two things to which all the divine commandments 
relate, and to which they may be reduced : to the same two things 
all the ordinances of the Levitical law necessarily had reference : 
and these are, purification from the evil and false tendencies of 
man's selfish nature, and the appropriation and practice, in their 
stead, of the principles and sentiments of goodness and truth. 



300 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

Such, accordingly, are the order and substance of the summaries 
of religion occasionally given in the Divine Word : " Depart from 
evil, and do good* " "Cease to do evil; learn to do well."f 
These two things then, in a general way, are pointed at in the 
ordinances of baptism and the Lord's supper : and thus in them 
is concentrated the substance of all the rituals of the Mosaic dis- 
pensation, and of all the precepts of the Word of God. On how 
numerous occasions washings were prescribed under the Levitieal 
law, is well known to all who have examined it: almost every 
ceremony, was to be accompanied with washing : of all these dif- 
ferent ablutions then the ordinance of baptism was appointed as an 
epitome. On how many occasions, also, sacrifices were to be 
offered, and how various were the kinds of them, are equally well 
known : instead then of " the flesh of bulls and the blood of goats," 
and of all the other sacrifices, are now substituted, as the substance 
of them all, the flesh and blood of the Son of man ; and as the 
former were all called, in one word, the bread of God, and were 
accompanied with libations of wine ; so of these, now, bread and 
wine are taken as the symbols. 

Now the foundation of these institutions in the universal prin- 
ciple, that spiritual things may be adequately represented by natural 
images, there being, from the order of creation, a fixed Relation 
of Analogy between the one and the other, is, one would think, 
too obvious to be denied ; and the meaning of them, when decy- 
phered by that principle, is, one might apprehend, too clear to be 
disputed. Between the washing of the person from its impurities, 
and the purification of the spirit from its defilements, the analogy 
is seen at once : and the water, which is the medium of efFecting 
the one, is the appropriate symbol of the truth, which is the agent 
in accomplishing the other. For how is man ever led to desist 
from the evil and error of his ways, but by listening to the com- 
mands and exhortations of Divine Truth ? Of Divine Truth, re- 
garded, not as to its power of enlightening the mind, but of puri- 
fying it, water is, assuredly, a most manifest image ; as it also is, 
when regarded as the element of drinking, of Divine Truth viewed 
as contributing to spiritual nourishment. Baptism then was in- 
stituted, not, as some have strangely supposed, as conferring rege- 
neration, but as a sign of it. It is submitted to as a pledge, that 
* Ps. xxxiv. 14. f Isa. i. 16, 17. 



V.] THE SCRIPTLTvES ASSERTED. 301 

the party undergoing it engages to yield liis mind and life to the 
purifying discipline of the truth ; and no doubt it is accompanied 
with a divine influence, conferring on him, more fully, the ability 
of acting in conformity with his engagement. 

But perhaps there is no instance in which the power of the 
Science of Analogies in explaining the sacred mysteries of the Word 
of God is more conspicuous, than in the ordinance of the Lord's 
supper. This is a subject which has involved the Christian world 
in endless disputes. One party maintains that the bread and wine, 
when consecrated, do actually become, by a real transubstantiation, 
the body and blood of the Lord : and if we confine ourselves to the 
literal sense of the Lord's words on instituting the rite, — " This is 
my body; — This is my blood*;" — we shall be forced to comess 
^Xhat this view is correct. The other party maintains, that, not- 
withstanding the Lord's words literally affirm it, the doctrine of 
transubstantiation cannot be true, because it supposes an impossi- 
bility : and if we consult the suggestions of reason, we must allow 
that this is undeniable. But when we are apprised that the Lord, 
for the expression of spiritual and divine ideas, constantly employed 
natural images answering to them by an exact analogy, the differ- 
ence is reconciled at once. Flesh and blood, being the two chief 
elements of man's corporeal frame, must denote, when predicated 
of a Divine Person, the two first Essentials of the Divine Nature, 
which are, love and wisdom, or goodness and truth. Bread and 
wine, as the main articles by which the body is nourished, must 
have the same signification. We learn then, that by receiving the 
bread and wine in the Holy Supper, are represented the reception 
and appropriation in the mind, of love and wisdom communicated 
by the Lord ; which have the same effect in nourishing and pre- 
serving our souls as the bread and wine have in nourishing and 
preserving our bodies. And doubtless the rite itself was instituted, 
because, in properly corresponding externals, internals are present 
with greater power than without them; and thus to the sincere 
communicant who ascribes all good to the Lord as its Author, he 
himself, with his divine graces of love and wisdom, is then more 
near than at other times, imparting that heavenly nourishment on 
which depends the life of his soul. 

But let this be as it may : whether or not any heavenly in- 
» Markxiv. 22, 24. 



$02 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [lECT. 

fluences are present at the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's 
Supper ; it seems impossible to doubt that such graces as we have 
described are intended to be represented by those ordinances : In 
them, therefore, we assuredly have conclusive evidence, that the 
Word of God is written according to the laws of that Analogy 
which so clearly connects together the objects of spirit and of 
nature, — the intellectual and moral with the physical and material 
world — and that this Analogy affords the Rule by which the 
genuine import of the Word of God may be decyphered. 

Here then we conclude our Proofs and Illustrations of the 
applicability of the Science of Analogies as a Eule for the interpre- 
tation of the Word of God : and though I am aware that the 
instances selected have not been elucidated with half the strength 
and clearness which the principle admits ; yet amid all the defects 
of the advocate, it can hardly, I trust, be denied, that from most 
of the examples such a degree of light has been elicited, as to 
render it morally certain that the principle is correct. 

But to draw from these elucidations the conclusion which they 
are intended to support, we must still remember the principles laid 
down at the beginning of the fourth Lecture, on the character 
which must necessarily belong to the Divine Style of Writing 
" If, as there stated, in a written revelation from God, the Divine 
Truth must clothe itself with ideas and images taken from the 
world of nature before it could be presented to man ; and if the 
Divine Style of Writing must thus follow the Law of that Analogy, 
which, as was shewn in the third Lecture, indissolubly connects 
natural objects and ideas with such as are spiritual and divine ; — 
it will follow, that the spiritual and divine wisdom which such a 
revelation muzt contain within it, could only be understood by a 
right application of this Law. And if on an application of this Law 
to the books called the Holy Scriptures, it should be found that 
they exhibit a coherent series of spiritual and divine instruction ; 
it will follow, further, that the Scriptures are such a revelation of 
Divine Truth presented to man in natural language ; that they are 
the Divine Speech, or Divine Word, which has emanated from the 
bosom of Deity, and presents itself under this form in this lowest 
sphere of creation." We have now tried the applicability of the 
Rule to all the species of composition which the Sacred Writings 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 303 

contain, — the prophetical, the historical, and the preceptive (, taking 
our examples of the last from the precepts relating to ceremonial 
rites) : we have found that, when decyphered by the proposed key, 
a coherent series of spiritual and divine instruction every where 
appears : we have a right then to infer, that the Scriptures actually 
are composed in the truly Divine Style of Writing, and that 
nothing below the Plenary Divine Inspiration was adequate to 
their production. 

V. Before I conclude this Lecture, I will add an argument 
which occurred to my own mind many years ago, and which to me 
carried irresistible conviction. 

1. It may be simply propounded thus: It is impossible for a 
false, yet regular rule for the interpretation of the Scriptures, to 
draw from them a coherent sense in every passage to which it 
should be applied : But the Doctrine of Analogies is thus uni- 
versally applicable : Necessarily, then, the Scriptures are written 
throughout according to that Doctrine, and this affords the true 
Bule for their interpretation. 

And it may be illustrated thus : Suppose a book were found, 
written in the English tongue, but in characters grown obsolete by 
antiquity. The mode of decyphering it, of course, would be, by 
ascertaining what letters of the present alphabet answer to those in 
which the book was written. It is evident that if, in attempting 
to assign the corresponding letters, we fixed upon wrong ones, 
though we might appear to make out a word here and there, the 
sense of the series of words would be as much hidden as ever. 
Suppose, for instance, I assume the letter which is indeed a G to 
be an M, the to be an A, and D an N; and instead of God 
were to read man, wherever that combination of letters occurred : 
although I should thus have got a single word, which, for aught 
that appeared in that instance alone, might be the true one, yet 
perhaps I might not find another case in which my misconstrued 
alphabet would make any word whatever ; and certainly I should 
never find two or three words, so made out, that would read 
together in a coherent series. Until, then, the really corresponding 
letters were discovered, all would be doubt and conjecture', we 
might dispute whether the book were written in the English or in 
any other language: and probably many would contend, that it was 



304 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

not intended to have any series of meaning at all ; just as is now 
generally affirmed with respect to the spiritual sense of the Scrip- 
tures. If, on the contrary, on applying any system of interpre- 
tation to the supposed mysterious book, it should be found to de- 
cypher, not one or two words only, but the whole : — if the whole 
might be read in order, definite words and a coherent sense being 
found in every part ; the truth of the proposed system of interpre- 
tation would be incontestable ; there could be no doubt that the 
unknown characters really answered to the common ones which the 
proposed system substituted for them. Now this case, I venture 
to affirm, is exactly parallel to that of our proposed interpretation 
of the Word of God by the Rule drawn from the Doctrine of 
Analogies. If the signification assigned from this Doctrine to any 
term used in Scripture were not the true one, — did not give the 
properly corresponding idea, — though a colourable interpretation 
of one or two passages might perhaps be offered, yet the appli- 
cation of the same sense to the same term wherever else it occurred 
would yield nothing but a chaos of confusion. But when we find 
that the contrary is the case with the system we have proposed; 
when it is seen, that this explains one passage as readily as 
another, and the whole as completely as a part ; when the sense 
assigned by it to any individual term is found to afford a luminous 
meaning in every instance where that term occurs*; the conclusion 
is irresistible, that the system is correct. On this ground we rest 
the claim of the Doctrine of Analogies to be received as the true 
key for the interpretation of Holy Writ ; assured that in this will 
be found the true alphabet for decyphering the Divine Style of 
writing. Let us take this for our guide, and begin with the books 
of Moses ; and we fear not to say ; Behold, their mysteries unfold. 
Let us proceed through the Prophets ; and nothing so recondite 
will present itself, as will not, on the right application of this key, 
expand full to the view. Let us continue our researches through 
the Gospels and Apocalypse, and still we shall find that this Doc- 
trine affords the universal talisman, by which the veil of the letter 
is every where laid open, and the wonders of God's law, — all 
that man can comprehend of the wisdom of Omniscience, — are 
revealed. 

* See this exemplified, with respect to the term clouds, in the fourth Lecture, 
p. 191, &c, and Appendix No. IV. 



V.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, 305 

The two conclusions then, of our proposition above, hence 
result : 

First, That the Doctrine of Analogies, being thus applicable to 
the decyphering of the natural images composing the letter of the 
Divine Word from one end of it to the other, affords the true rule 
for its interpretation. 

Secondly : That the Divine Word, being thus universally capable 
of being interpreted by the Doctrine of Analogies, must have been 
intentionally written according to it. 

2. Let us extend this argument by the following supplement : 
How can it be accounted for, that writings composed by a great 
number of different authors, who were scattered over a period of 
sixteen hundred years, and were thus without any possibility of 
settling a plan in concert, should be written throughout by a 
uniform principle of so remarkable a kind; — especially when it is 
certain, that at least the greater number of the penmen were quite 
unconscious that their productions were governed by this principle, 
and were entirely unacquainted with the spiritual contents, which, 
by virtue of this law of their construction, their writings con- 
tained ? 

From this circumstance, alone, then, we surely are again entitled 
to infer, that the style in which the Scriptures are composed, fol- 
lowing every where the Law of Analogy, is the truly Divine Style 
of Writing ; and that nothing short of Plenary Divine Inspiration 
could be adequate to the production of Compositions so extraordi- 
nary. Truly, therefore, are they denominated, "the Word of 
God." 



306 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 



LECTURE VI. 

THE WHOLE FABRIC OF INFIDEL OBJECTIONS SHEWN TO BE WITHOUT 
FOUNDATION. 

I. General View of the System and Arguments of the preceding Lectures : Important ad- 
ditional Testimony. II. The four classes of Infidel Objections stated in the first Lecture 
resumed, and examined by the view which has been developed of the nature of the Holy 
Word, and of the means of decyphering its true signification. 1. Imputed Inconsistencies 
with Eeason and Science considered: Style of Writing in the first part of the book of 
Genesis. 2. Iir.puted Contradictions considered: Why foui Gospels were written. 3. Im- 
puted Violations of Morality considered : David not a pattern, but a type. 4. Imputed 
Insignificance considered. General Reply confirmed ;— That all such Objections arise from 
taking a merely superficial view of the Sacred Scriptures, and from an utter Ignorance of 
their true Nature. IIL Address to Christians, on the Necessity of taking higher ground 
in their Controversy with Deists. IV. Address to Deists, on the internal causes of Scep- 
ticism. Conclusion. 

It has been the object of our preceding Lectures to shew, that the 
Holy Scriptures are written according to the laws of the Analogy 
or Mutual Relation established by creation between things natural 
and spiritual; that they thus contain a spiritual sense distinct 
from the literal expression, which they could not convey, in an 
orderly series, unless they were divinely inspired throughout ; that 
there is ample evidence that they are thus written, and of course 
that they are divinely inspired ; and thus that they are, what they 
profess to be, the Word of God. 

I. The line of argument by which we arrive at this conclusion 
has consisted of four stages, which, now that we are about to close 
the whole discussion, we will state in one view. 

1. We have seen, ir the first place, in our first Lecture, that a 
Eevelation which is inaeed from God, must contain, in every part 
of it, the treasures of infinite Wisdom : but we have seen also, 
that this wisdom does not every where appear in the Scriptures on 
the face of the letter ; — so far from it, that infidels have deduced 
from the appearances of the letter, and in ignorance of their con- 
taining any thing further, various plausible arguments for denying 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 307 

them to have proceeded from any superior intelligence. But the 
fair inference from those appearances is, not that they are not 
divinely inspired, but that, if they are, they must contain that 
superior wisdom which is the criterion of inspiration, in an interior 
sense distinct from the literal expression. This the deistical ob- 
jections appear to me decidedly to prove; — that if the Scriptures 
actually do not contain any thing beyond what appears on the sur- 
face, they are not the Word of God : but they by no means prove 
the negation which they aim at, — that they are not the Word of 
God : — they only prove, that, to be such, they must contain more 
than appears on the surface, — that they must include a spiritual 
sense within the letter, in which all difficulties vanish, and the 
wdsdom every way worthy of God opens to the view. 

So far, then, the objections of Deists may clearly be retorted 
against themselves. We may say to them, "After all your in- 
dustry in seeking for difficulties in the letter of Scripture; and 
admitting the difficulties you have brought forward to be ever so 
great, so long as the literal expression alone is attended to ; you 
have not produced any thing that can convince a reflecting mind 
that the Scriptures are not the Word of God ; you only elevate our 
conceptions to higher views respecting what the Word of God 
must really be. We find in the Scriptures numerous intimations, 
leading us to look for something beyond the letter : the difficulties 
you have started are calculated to turn attention* the same way : 
Let us then examine the Scriptures in this new and more exalted 
point of view ; in which, if you will accompany us, you will pro- 
bably see reason to change your opinion, and to acknowledge 
that your objections to the inspiration of the Scriptures have all 
proceeded upon a very partial and entirely inadequate view of the 
case." 

2. This being precisely the situation in which the Christian ad- 
vocate is placed by the Deistical objector, we proceeded, in the 
second branch of our argument, contained in our second Lecture, 
to examine the question thus opened for consideration. Here then 
we gave proofs, from rational and philosophical considerations, 
that a composition which is really the Word of God, must not 
only be generally replete with divine wisdom, but must contain 
the chief stores of such wisdom in its interior recesses, — in a spi- 
ritual sense included within the letter; — just as, in all the works 



308 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

of God, and especially in his noblest work, man, are contained 
innumerable forms and wonderful organs, both corporeal and 
mental*, within the outward form which alone is visible to the eye. 
This branch of the argument then stands thus : " A composition 
which has God for its Author, must contain within it stores of 
hidden wisdom, beyond that which appears on the surface: On 
the supposition, then, that the Scriptures are the Word of God, 
they actually must be replete with such hidden wisdom." And 
thus the same conclusion is pressed upon us by considerations 
grounded in the very nature of things, which we before found was 
pointed out to us by the infidel objections. 

It is true that this argument does not prove, that the Scriptures 
positively are the Word of God, but only, what their nature must 
be if they are : But as they likewise affirm the same of themselves, 
and had that affirmation believed, without reserve, in the days 
of primitive and pure Christianity, (both which points are also 
proved in our second Lecture,) a full coincidence is established 
between what a divine revelation must be, and what the Scriptures 
pretend to be : and thus is raised a strong presumption, that this, 
on due examination, is what they will actually be found to be. 
Before then the Deist rejects them on account of some things 
which offend him in the letter, it behoves him to be very certain, 
that the literal sense is all that is intended : and if he is assured 
that a further meaning is intended, (and I wish my voice or pen 
could carry this assurance to every one that ever saw a Bible, 
whether Deist or Christian !) then ought he, as a candid inquirer, 
to pause a while, and examine the evidence upon which this state- 
ment rests : and sure I am, that whoever would candidly do this, 
and would take the pains to understand it, must be convinced of 
its truth, and must learn to prize the Scriptures as his highest 
treasure, — as containing indeed the pure Word of God. 

3. But to determine this point with certainty, it is necessary 
that we should be acquainted with the Law or Eule by which every 
divine composition must be composed, and by which of course it 
alone can be decyphered: wherefore, as the third branch of our 
argument, we proceeded to shew, in our third Lecture, that there 
must be, from the very nature of creation, an unalterable relation 
between natural things and spiritual, insomuch that all things in 
nature, being outward productions from inward essences, must be 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 309 

natural, sensible, and material types, of moral, intellectual, and 
spiritual antetypes, and finally of their prototypes in God. I then 
availed myself of several testimonies in favour of this great prin- 
ciple : but I will here mention one which was not before the public 
at the time of the delivery of my former Lecture, but which is so 
striking and beautiful, that I am sure every lover of trut*h will be 
glad to be put in possession of it now. It is contained in an 
address delivered by the Eev. W. Kirby, M.A., E.K., and L.S., 
the Chairman of the Zoological Club of the Linnsean Society, at a 
late meeting of that body. He offers his views of the existence 
of fixed analogies among the various orders of being ; of the im- 
portance of the recognition of the principle to the higher interests 
of Science ; and of its applicability to the construction of a highly 
significant language ; in these terms : " When we are engaged in 
the study of animals, and more especially in groups of them, it is 
of the first importance, if we would avoid mistakes, that our atten- 
tion should be kept alive to what the friend lately alluded to has 
said on the subject of affinity and analogy.* By his judicious 
observations on this subject, he has opened a new door into the 
temple of nature, and taught us to explore her mystic labyrinths, 
guided by a safer clew than we were wont to folloio. And whoever 
casts even a cursory glance over her three kingdoms, will every 
where be struck by resemblances between objects which have no 
real relation to each other. He will see on one side dendritic 
minerals ; on another, zoomorphous plants ; on a third, phytomor- 
<phous animals j and among animals themselves he will see number- 
less instances of this simulation of affinity where the reality of it 
does not exist. From this part of the plan of the Creator, we may 
gather, I think, that every thing has its MEANING, as 
well as its USE ; and that probably to the first pair the 
Creation was a book op SYMBOLS, a sacred LANGUAGE; 
of which they possessed THE KEY, and which it was their 
delight to study and decypher."j- 

Here then is asserted in the most conclusive manner, and as 
founded on the most certain facts, the very principle which it has 

* The gentleman alluded to is Mr. Macleay, who has demonstrated the ex- 
istence of a remarkable analogy between insects and fungi : See our third Lec- 
ture, p. 85 and 86 (notes). 

f Phil. Mag, Dec. 1823, p. 461. 



310 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

been a chief object of these Lectures to establish. Not only does 
this enlightened philosopher and divine, affirm the existence of a 
fixed analogy between the various objects of the three kingdoms of 
nature, but he recognises, as an unavoidable consequence, its ex- 
istence between the kingdoms of nature and those of mind : and 
when he' concludes that it forms a sacred language, of which our 
first parents possessed the key, he leads by an easy step to our 
further conclusion, that in this language the Word of God is, and 
must be, written. Little, certainly, did I think, when I first pro- 
pounded the principle in this Hall, that it was being advanced, 
almost at the same moment, in one of the most distinguished phi- 
losophical societies in the kingdom ! But from this and other 
tokens I am quite satisfied, that the advances which science is at 
present making in all directions, are very rapidly leading the minds 
of reflecting men to the same doctrine of Scripture interpretation 
as has been offered in these Lectures. The final consequence will 
be, that there will be no resting place to be found between absolute 
Atheism, and those views of the nature of the Divine Word which 
we have endeavoured to develope. These, all real science will be 
found more and more to confirm: and Atheism, also, will then 
become far more inexcusable, because the testimonies to the divinity 
of the Scriptures will become so palpable and so abundant. 

4. Finally, we have endeavoured to shew, that the communi- 
cation of a Eevelation from God to man, must follow the same 
general law as regulated the production of the creation ; tlius that 
the Analogy found to exist between natural things and spiritual, 
must govern the composition of writings constituting such a Eeve- 
lation ; and that, in point of fact, such a regard to this Analogy is 
discoverable in every part of the Holy Word, and is the true key 
for decyphering its contents. Examples in proof of this, with 
dissertations on the true nature of divinely inspired prophecy and 
divinely inspired history, and on the design of the selection of the 
Israelites as a peculiar people, occupied our two last and longest 
Lectures : and I do trust, that some of the instances which were 
given of the applicability of the Doctrine of Analogies to the inter- 
pretation of the Divine Word, though very imperfectly elucidated, 
must yet have been sufficiently clear to carry conviction to every 
accessible mind. 

The presumption, then, in favour of the divinity of the Scrip- 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 311 

tures, created by the former part of our argument, now rises to 
certainty; for this branch of the argument stands thus: A Compo- 
sition which has God for its Author must own the laws of the same 
Analogy as reigns through all the divine works: This characte- 
ristic exists in the Sacred Scriptures : Wherefore they must have 
proceeded from the Author of nature. If it be objected that this 
only proves that the Scriptures may have had such an origin, but 
not that they mast ,° a supplementary member may be added to the 
argument : As was shewn at the commencement of the fifth Lec- 
ture, No composition could, everyicliere, follow the laws of the 
Analogy between natural and spiritual objects, unless dictated by a 
Being to whom the properties of all natural and spiritual objects 
were perfectly known : As then the Scriptures do everywhere follow 
this Analogy, they must have proceeded from a Being of Infinite 
Intelligence. 

Thus have we arrived fully at the conclusion, that the Scriptures 
are, what they profess to be, the Word of God. 

II. If then it is true, that such is the nature of the Word of 
God ; — if, as has been shewn, it is not given to communicate to 
man natural knowledge, but spiritual, — and if, as likewise has been 
evinced, to communicate spiritual things without a veil would be 
to injure those who are in states of confirmation against divine 
things, and not to benefit them ; — if, finally, it is because it follows 
the Law which must necessarily govern the communication of a 
Divine Eevelation, that the Word of God is couched in language 
outwardly simple, whilst it contains divine wisdom within ; which, 
also, is capable of being decyphered by an application to it of the 
laws observable in nature : then are we furnished with a satis- 
factory answer to every argument that can possibly be urged 
against it. It necessarily follows, that it is the Word of God 
indeed : and it is immediately seen that all infidel objections pro- 
ceed upon a partial view of the case, and that they fall to the 
ground of themselves, as soon as the true nature of the Writings 
against which they are raised is known, without the necessity of 
being separately refuted. 

By way of conclusion, however, we are to shew more particu- 
larly, how the system of which we have been endeavouring to give 
a sketch, applies to the four classes of infidel objections noticed in 



312 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

our first Lecture; which impute to it many statements contra- 
dictory to each other ; many that are contradictory to reason and 
science ; many that are contradictory to just morality ; and many 
that relate to matters of an indifferent nature, totally unworthy of 
the concern of an Infinite Being. 

1. There will be some convenience in considering first, that 
class of infidel objections which imputes to the Scriptures Contra- 
dictions to Reason and Science. 

Rightly to estimate the chief of these objections, it is necessary 
to be acquainted with the peculiarity of style belonging to that 
part of the Word of God in which they occur ; which is, the first 
portion of the book of Genesis. We have endeavoured to draw the 
line of distinction, in our fourth Lecture*, between some of the 
books contained in the collection denominated the Bible, and 
others, and to shew, that while the greater part are written by the 
plenary inspiration for which we contend, and thus contain a spiri- 
tual sense within that of the letter, which is the criterion for dis- 
tinguishing the proper Word of God; the remainder are the 
offspring of the illuminated intellect of the writers, possess no 
regular sense beside that of the letter, and cannot claim any higher 
inspiration than that lax and partial one, which is now all that 
is usually allowed to the whole of the Sacred Writings. But among 
those books which are written by the plenary and immediate inspi- 
ration, there are also some specific differences of style, though they 
are all composed in the general divine style. Thus the prophetic 
style is evidently different from the historical. There also are two 
species of that which assumes the historical form ; and which must 
be distinctly seen, before we can meet effectually that class of 
infidel objections which is founded on imputed contradictions to 
reason and science. 

(1.) We have seen in the fifth Lecturef, that the Israelites were 
selected by Divine Providence, to be made the instruments of 
representing things of a divine and spiritual nature ; hence, though 
the particulars of their history recorded in the Scriptures are all 
typical, exhibiting spiritual and divine things under symbolic 
actions and descriptions, they still are histories of real occurrences, 
which took place, in general, as they are related. But it is easy 

* Page 133 ; but more particularly in the Appendix, No. IL, 
f Pa S e228to248; &c 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 313 

to see, that this combination of symbolic meaning with actual facts 
could not exist, till the nation, thus invested by divine appoint- 
ment with a representative character, existed : this species of Divine 
Writing, therefore, can only commence with the origin of the 
Israelitish nation. What style, then, might we expect would be 
employed in that portion of the Word of God, which relates to the 
affairs of the inhabitants of the earth before the birth of Abraham, 
the great founder of the Israelitish nation ? What could be so 
proper, as the style of writing which prevailed among the natives 
of the globe at the period it describes ? And this was the style of 
pure allegory, in which the things meant are so entirely inde- 
pendent of the things mentioned, that the latter are invented to 
serve merely as a vehicle for the conveyance of the former. 

If such be the fact, there cannot be a greater mistake than to 
imagine, that the first chapter of Genesis is intended to be an exact 
description of the process of the Creation of the world. It can 
answer to it no further, than as the real order of that creation 
answered to the order in which the endowments necessary for 
rendering man a purely intelligent and heavenly-minded being were 
successively implanted in him ; and which was an order similar to 
that, in which the child now advances from the ignorance in which 
he comes into the world, to the understanding of a man. All the 
objections then which scepticism has advanced against the divine 
inspiration of the Word of God, founded on the inconsistency of 
some of the facts related in the early part of Genesis with the 
known principles of reason and science, fall to the ground at once, 
when it is seen, that this is not intended to be the record of a 
natural but of a spiritual creation; and that the events which 
follow to the time of Abraham, are not intended to give the history 
of mankind as to their outward transactions, but a history of man- 
kind as to the state of their minds, and their reception or per- 
version of divine gifts and graces. To affirm, as is now the fashion, 
that the narration is to be literally understood, — that the ordinary 
date of human life was then about a thousand years, — that serpents 
could talk, and that the woman was literally made of her husband's 
rib, — is to exact of the believer a blind faith indeed. In the early 
ages of Christianity, her teachers knew better : they did not thus 
" bind heavy burthens, and grievous to be borne, and lay them on 
men's shoulders," Clemens of Alexandria, one of the most learne 

14 



314 PLENARY INSriEATION OF [LECT. 

of the early Fathers, declares, that such was the style customary 
in the ages to which this history belongs ; observing " that all who 
have treated of divine subjects, whether Greeks or Barbarians, in- 
dustriously involved the beginnings of things, and have delivered 
the truth in enigmas, signs, and symbols, in allegories and meta- 
phors, and other such figures."* Origen, when the shrewd enemy 
of Christianity, Celsus, ridiculed the stories of the rib, the serpent, 
&c, as childish fables, reproaches him for want of candour, in 
purposely keeping out of sight, what was so evident upon the face 
of the narrative, that the whole is a pure allegory, f Indeed, so 
universal was this sentiment, that De la Bigue, in his Bibliotheca 
Patrum, after quoting a number of testimonies to this effect, says, 
" For these reasons, the Interpreters whom we have mentioned, 
understanding all that is said of Paradise in a spiritual manner, 
affirmed, that divers heresies had arisen, because certain persons 
had understood what is said of God and Paradise after a carnal 
manner^ :" so that although orthodoxy, as the prevailing opinion 
is always called, has since gone over to the other side, it is certain 
that, in the primitive days, the heretics were those who interpreted 
this part of Scripture according to the letter. 

However, there is an evident prospect, that Reason and Truth 
will, in this respect, again resume their sway ; for just sentiments 
in regard to the bearing of Revelation on physical science, are now 
frequently promulgated from high authority: Indeed, the sentiment 
which I have advanced, that Divine Revelation is not intended to 
communicate to mankind natural knowledge, but moral and spiri- 
tual, seems likely soon to be generally admitted. Thus the Eev. 
W. D. Conybeare, in his admirable Introduction to " Outlines of 
the Geology of England and Wales," by himself and Mr. Phillips, 
delivers his views of this question thus : " Before we examine the 
bearings of physical science on Revelation, our ideas should first be 
settled as to what may reasonably be expected from Revelation in 
this respect. Both its opponents and some of its defendants often 
seem to argue, as if it should have included the discovery ot a 
system of physical truth ; which, it would not be difficult to shew, 
gives an entirely erroneous view of its professed object ; — to treat, 
namely, of the history of man, only, and that, even, but as far a9 

* Strom. 1. v. p. 658, Ed. Ox. f Cont. Cels. 1. iv. p. 187, Ed. Sp. 

J "Propter has causas," &c. torn. i. p. 270. (Par. 1589.) 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 315 

affects his relations to his Creator, and the dealings of Divine Pro- 
vidence in regard to him."* He afterwards gives three views of 
the manner in which the term days may be understood in the first 
chapter of Genesis ; the second of which, and by far the most 
tenable one, he states thus : " We may perhaps without real 
violence to the inspired writer, regard the periods of creation re- 
corded by Moses, and expressed under the term of days, not to have 
designated ordinary days of twenty-four hours, but periods of defi- 
nite but considerable length ; such a mode of extending the signifi- 
cation of this term being not unexampled in the Sacred Writings. 
Those who embrace this opinion, will of course assign the formation 
of the secondary strata, in great part at least, to these days of 
creation ; and we have the authority of several divines in favour of 
this mode of interpretation. "f 

Here we have the principle openly admitted, that to convey 
physical instruction cannot be the design of the book of God ; and 
that even to make the statements which appear in the form of 
physical details harmonize with the unquestionable discoveries of 
true science, great latitude must be taken in the interpretation of 
the terms. The same doctrine is powerfully advocated in a late 
Number of the Quarterly Eeview ; which I advert to, because that 
journal is devoted to the interests of religion, as understood in the 
Church of England, — and because the reputed author of the article 
alluded to is likewise a clergyman .% Supposing, however, that this 
part of the narrative of the beginning of Genesis, were capable, by 

* Page 1. t P- lx. 

% The passage is rather long; but its interest being fully commensurate 
with its length, it is here given. It forms part of the review of Professor 
Buckland's late work, Reliquice Diluvianice. 

" The more the strata which compose the crust of the earth are examined, the 
stronger evidence do they present of revolutions and catastrophes occurring at 
wide intervals of time, of slow progressive advancement to its present state, 
and of the existence of varied orders of created beings which successively occu- 
pied its surface before it was finally fitted for the abode of man. These phe- 
nomena, or rather the principles on which they are explained in the modern 
schools of geology, have been thought to militate against the history of the 
creation contained in the first chapters of Genesis. — 

" The usual mode of solving the difficulty has been, to interpret the six days 
of creation, not as natural days determined by the revolution of the earth en 
its axis, but as indefinite periods of time: and to this explanation Mr. 
Buckland seems disposed in that [his Inaugural] Lecture to incline. Others 



316 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

this latitude of interpretation, of being reconciled with the facts as 
now ascertained, much difficulty would still remain to account for 

object to it -with great vehemence, as wholly incompatible with the institution 
of the Sabbath, which is manifestly set forth as the seventh day : and there- 
fore they contend, that the other six must necessarily be regarded as days in 
the same sense, and of the same kind. 

" Instead of presuming to decide peremptorily in this matter ; our object will 
rather be to caution the friends of religion against a rash and possibly mis- 
chievous mode of vindicating their opinions. We beseech them to bear in mind, 
that similar alarm has been taken, and similar zeal manifested, in the cause 
of religion, in several instances which have all terminated in establishing the 
points so much dreaded ; and yet Christianity, so far from receiving a shock, 
has only emerged from the controversy with increased vigour and lustre. It 
is hardly necessary to remind them of the persecutions raised against the first 
teachers of the Copernican system of the universe. The doctrine was pro- 
nounced to be contradictory to the language of Holy "Writ, and was accord- 
ingly condemned as false and impious. Nay, so late as the early part of the 
eighteenth century, when the Jesuits' edition of Newton appeared, '* was 
thought necessary by the Editors to prefix an advertisement, disclaiming all 
belief in the system thus demonstrated, because it had been declared unscrip- 
tural by the church, and setting it forth only as a series of deductions from 
a false hypothesis. — 

" Well indeed it is for us, that the cause of revelation does not depend upon 
questions such as these : for it is remarkable that in every instance the con- 
troversy has ended in a gradual surrender of those very points which were at 
one time represented as involving the vital interests of religion. Truth, it is 
certain, cannot be opposed to Truth. How inconsiderate a risk do they run, 
who declare that the whole cause is at issue in a single dispute, and that the 
substance of our faith hangs upon a thread — upon the literal interpretation of 
some word or phrase against which fresh arguments are springing up from day 
to day ! 

" Why, for instance, must we be compelled to understand the word efoy, in 
the first chapter of Genesis, precisely in the same sense it now bears, viz. the 
period of the earth's rotation upon its axis ? Certain it is from the narrative 
itself that the word does not bear the same meaning throughout the whole 
chapter ; for the first three days were passed before the creation of the sun is 
Mentioned : and yet in these, no less than in the others, the portion of time is 
aenoted by the words ' evening and morning :' which, according to their re- 
ceived import, necessarily suppose the existence of the sun. Let us not, how- 
ever, oe misunderstood. We are firmly convinced that the institution of the 
Sabbath is a divine ordinance from the beginning — that the observance of it is 
enjoined as commemorative of the close of the great work of creation, and that 
its solemn obligation is expressed by the parallel which it pleased God to draw 
oetween the progress of his own works, and the destined employment of that 
being whom he made in his own likeness. Yet no one can believe, when it is 
said God rested from his works, that he really underwent fatigue and required 



VI.] " ,TT C SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 317 

the existence of light for four days (and days too of this indefinitely 
long duration, amounting, altogether, at least to hundreds of years; 
— to account for the existence of light all this while) before the 
creation of the sun, moon, and stars : — for the hypothesis which 
has been so eagerly caught at by some of the Christian advocates, 
that this light was what certain modern philosophers have called 
" the matter of light," diffused through all space, cannot be accepted 
till it is shewn, that light can ever be rendered perceptible without 
some luminous centre to put it into activity. "When such philo- 
sophic advocates of the literal sense can introduce us into a closed 
room, containing neither lamp nor candle, yet fully illuminated by 
the universally diffused " matter of light," their explanation of 
Genesis may be received : but to receive it before, is only to com- 
bine the dreams of philosophers with the dreams of divines. But 
every difficulty would be surmounted at once, were it admitted, 
that to describe the spiritual creation, — the endowment of man 
with those gifts and graces which were so eminently conspicuous in 
the primitive times, — in those times which the poets have designated 
as the golden age, and have represented by the fiction of the garden 
of Jupiter, and which our Scriptures depict by the happiness of 
man when the garden of Eden was his abode ; — were it admitted 
that to describe this creation is the true object of this relation in 
Genesis. The truth is, that the circumstances detailed agree with 
the facts attending the physical creation, so far as the analogy 
between the one and the other is exact; but when it holds no 
longer, the inspired relation follows the course of the moral creation, 
and disregards the physical altogether. 

(2 .) The truth of this view will be greatly strengthened, if we 
stop a little to consider the genius of the inhabitants of the world 
in those very ancient times, according to the best idea we can form 
of it from the traditions and accounts handed down from ancient 
writers. 

This is a circumstance which has much puzzled the explorers of 
antiquity, and which has frequently led historians immensely out of 

repose. The same principle of accommodation to our perceptions and modes 
of speaking must be admitted here as it is in a thousand other passages of Holy 
Scripture. Our duty cannot be mistaken, whatever interpretation we put upon 
the disputed words ; and it is this duty which it is the main purpose of that volume 
to declare and impress upon us." Q. R. No. IviL p. 162 to 164. 



318 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

the way ; that all history is, in the beginning, involved in fable. 
Trace up the records of any very ancient nation to its origin, and 
they are universally found to become enveloped in mystery, — to 
contain relations as remote from probability as those delivered in the 
early part of Genesis ; wherefore they are considered by all as in- 
credible. Now the air which they thus wear of incredibility, can- 
not possibly arise from their antiquity alone. Never was there a 
more gross attempt to impose an egregious sophism upon the 
public, than when a celebrated infidel advanced, that all testimony 
diminished in credibility in the ratio of its age. The history of 
Thucydides and the commentaries of Cassar, will carry as much 
conviction to the mind of the reader that they were intended to be 
records of actual occurrences, and are in the main true, rive 
thousand years hence, as they do now, or ever did : whereas the 
fabulous history of the origin of Thebes, and of the armed men 
that sprung out of the earth when Cadmus had killed a dragon and 
sown his teeth in the ground, equally wore the character of fable 
when first the story was broached as at the present day : only, they 
who lived in the age of its invention, knew that it was to be re- 
garded as «n allegorical and not as a real history ; they knew, also, 
how such allegories were to be interpreted; and did not, like many 
of the modern learned, suppose, that every writing wearing the 
historical form was meant to be understood literally, and that, if it 
was in this shape incredible, it was to be rejected altogether. The 
fact is, as the remains of Grecian, Egyptian, and Indian antiquity 
which have come down to us abundantly evince, that it was the 
custom in very ancient times, not only with the people who lived 
before the flood, but with those who flourished many ages after- 
wards, to couch whatever they wished to be conveyed to posterity 
under the form of an historical relation, but intermingled, like the 
history of Adam and Eve, witli circumstances so extraordinary, as 
shewed that it was not designed to be literally apprehended. But 
in process of time the meaning of the symbols which they used was 
forgotten; and then the narratives composed by their aid, being 
accompanied with a traditional feeling of respect which prevented 
their total rejection, began to be understood in their literal sense 
only, and mankind were lost in amazement at the marvellous 
things, which they supposed their ancestors witnessed. Thus the 
vulgar, in the latter ages of Greece and Kome, looked back with 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 319 

admiration at the times when their heroes went to school to the 
centaurs, and sacred statues or holy shields fell from heaven for the 
protection of favoured cities ; as the vulgar of modern date, — such 
of them, at least, as love the world so well they fain would never 
leave it, — envy the longevity of the antediluvian patriarchs, and 
think how happy they should be were a thousand years still the 
duration of human life. 

But further : The people of the earliest ages of the world were 
of a turn of mind so devoted to exalted sentiments and sublime 
contemplations, that they never thought of committing to writing 
accounts of common occurrences : they were too indifferent to the 
affairs of this world, in which they knew they were but pilgrims and 
sojourners, to deem them worth recording : for which reason, no 
authentic history of political or civil events, of any very great anti- 
quity, exists. Hence the well-known remark of the learned Varro : 
that the space of time before the flood was a^Xov, — the period of 
utter obscurity ; that the age from the flood to the first Olympiad 
was fivOiKov — the period of fable or mystery ; and that it was only 
with the first Olympiad that commenced the period isropiKov — 
that of literal history. The reason why the genius of these ancients 
led them to describe interior subjects in the language of allegory, 
was, because the illumination of their minds was such as to enable 
them to discern, in natural objects the images of the spiritual and 
divine things which are the causes of their production ; because, as 
elegantly expressed by Mr. Kirby, "the creation was to them a book 
of symbols, a sacred language, of which they possessed the key, and 
which it was their delight to study and decypher." Hence, when they 
wished to communicate to others their interior perceptions, they 
would veil their thoughts in language borrowed from natural objects 
and occurrences. Whilst, indeed, this knowledge was possessed in- 
tuitively, they probably would not think of writing at all. The 
whole creation was to them an open book : whatever they had 
occasion or desire to know, they there could read : every object in 
it spoke to them, in the clearest terms, of the supreme objects of 
their regard, — of God, and heaven, and heavenly things ; and read- 
ing every thing there, they had no occasion for any books beside. 
But when this faculty of intuitive perception began to decline, in 
consequence of their beginning to turn their affections towards 
outward objects, instead of only using these, as before, as means 



320 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

for nourishing their love for heavenly things as contemplated in 
them ; whilst yet, among the better sort, a desire for the knowledge 
of heavenly things remained ; then, we may conclude, they would 
study those things as a science which they before knew by intuition. 
Then books would begin to be composed, in which they would 
endeavour to express their meaning by analogies taken from the 
objects of nature, the knowledge of which they would long regard 
as the first of sciences, and the distinguishing mark of wisdom and 
learning. 

Now the early chapters of Genesis treat of the people who were 
of this character and genius, — both of those who had an intuitive 
perception of spiritual things in natural objects, and of those who 
enjoyed the knowledge of them by science and study ; and there- 
fore that part of the book is written in a style similar to that which 
those people used ; that is, spiritual and interior subjects are de- 
scribed in language borrowed from the appearances of nature, — in 
the form of apologue and allegory, — in a narrative that appears in 
the letter to relate only to natural and ordinary facts. Whole 
classes of people, whose modes of thinking and feeling, especially 
in regard to sacred subjects, were similar, are personified as one 
man, to whom an age is assigned, answering, probably, to the 
period during which the principles represented continued to pre- 
vail : the manner in which one class of religious sentiment and 
profession is propagated from another is described by family de- 
scents : and the fates among mankind of religion in general, or the 
vicissitudes which the church of God, under different forms, ex- 
perienced, are represented by the fortunes of these allegorical per- 
sonages. That such a mode of describing such subjects is agree- 
able to nature, is evident from the tendency to it which still occa- 
sionally shews itself; of which many examples might be given from 
modern compositions. 

(3.) That such is the character of the Scripture history antece- 
dent to the birth of Abraham, may also be inferred from the 
similarity which is observable between the events which it relates 
and the traditionary accounts of the ancient heathen mythologers. 
This resemblance has been observed by many of the Christian ad- 
vocates, from Justin and Clemens to Bryant and Faber ; and lias 
been dwelt upon as affording a strong testimony to the authenticity 
of the Mosaic writings. Many, however, have here run into an 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 321 

error, which has thrown a shade of doubt and suspicion over all 
that they have urged upon the subject : they have assumed, that 
whatever exists in heathen writings which bears some simili- 
tude to facts, or apparent facts, detailed in our Scriptures, was 
borrowed from this source : and they who do not affirm this, con- 
sider such fables of the heathens to be mere distortions of matters 
of fact, which are simply true as recorded in the Bible. But the 
argument in favour of the authority of the Volume of Bevelation is 
much stronger, when it is admitted, as doubtless is the truth, that 
neither the mythological stories nor the corresponding relations in 
Genesis are details of external facts, but both are allegorical records 
of the same facts in the moral and spiritual history of mankind, 
handed down through different channels: the former being pro- 
ductions of men who possessed the knowledge, and wrote in the 
style, which was common to the learned of those ages; and the latter 
being also composed in the style which was common to those 
times, so far as this consisted in the purely allegorical character of 
the narration, but written by absolute inspiration, and thus possess- 
ing all the fulness and truth which inspiration only can convey. This 
will account for the considerable variety in the images under which 
the circumstances are described. Thus, for example, we have the 
record in Scripture of the termination of two distinct dispensations 
of divine things to man ; the first of which, beginning with Adam, 
closes with the flood; and the other, which commenced with Noah, 
began to be corrupted at the building of the tower of Babel, and was 
totally so by the abominations which were plunged into by the Ca- 
naanites, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and other nations which 
flourished in those ages, and which originally were branches of 
the Noetic Church. These events are evidently the same as are de- 
scribed in the Grecian mythology, by the two wars waged against 
heaven by two different races of giants, the first called the Titans, and 
the second, simply the giants.* The first race is described in Scrip- 
ture by the giants which are said to have existed before the flood, 
and who are represented as having sprung from the intercourse of 
the sons of God with the daughters of men : and the second race, 
though not denominated giants in the Scriptures, are they who 
undertook the gigantic enterprise of building a tower whose top 
should reach to heaven, — an enterprise very similiar to that of 
* See our third Lecture, p. 113 & 116. 

14* 



322 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

scaling heaven by a pile of mountains. By these relations, both the 
mythological and Scriptural, is not meant that a race of people of 
enormous stature then existed: but giants, in the language of 
Analogy, are they who are great in their own conceit : and such 
giants as are here spoken of, were they who absolutely looked upon 
themselves as deities, arrogating all merit, all goodness, and all 
wisdom to themselves, and not allowing that every thing they pos- 
sessed which was really good was imparted to them by gift and 
perpetual derivation from the Lord alone. In short the symbol of 
monstrous giants was adopted, to represent those who fell into such 
direful persuasions, as to imagine that the Deity had actually trans- 
fused himself into them, so as to have no existence independently of 
them ; approximations to which sentiment are to be found in some 
of the doctrines of the Greek philosophers ; and at this day it lies 
at the bottom of the religious system of the Hindoos, and has 
decided affiliations in that of Thibet and China : the origins of all 
which rise to the highest antiquity. 

Ts it not then, we may now ask with confidence, in the highest 
degree probable, that the early part of Genesis, and the mytho- 
logical tales which bear so much resemblance to it, relate to the 
same facts, not in the political and civil, but in the moral and 
spiritual history of mankind ? that they equally are composed in 
the general style prevalent in the ages to which they refer ? that 
neither the one narrative nor the other was ever intended to be 
understood according to the literal form ? that both are intermixed 
with such stories as, in the literal sense, are in the highest degree 
extravagant and incredible, purposely, among their other uses, to 
intimate to mankind that a common record of facts was not in- 
tended ? but that the mythological tales, though originally com- 
posed by men who possessed a knowledge of interior things and 
their analogies with natural objects, yet not being communicated 
by plenary inspiration, have not a spiritual sense, except as to the 
general circumstances, do not exist in any record which carries a 
spiritual idea in every expression, and are not always, perhaps, 
exact representations of the things intended : whereas, in Genesis, 
the same occurrences are described in language inspired through- 
out, and all the representatives are infallibly exact ? 

We may, I trust, now repeat as a certain fact : that this early 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 323 

part of Genesis is written in the language of pure allegory, because 
it describes the moral history of a people with whom that style of 
writing was the only one in use ; and because, further, it could not 
be given in the style of true but representative history, whilst the 
nation afterwards raised up to sustain the proper representations 
was not yet in existence ; and because, finally, these are the only 
two species of narrative that can be delivered by plenary inspira- 
tion ; from which source, a history of mere facts, containing no in- 
ternal meaning, never can proceed. 

Now what objection, carrying the smallest weight, can be raised 
against this view of the subject? I can see none. It solves all 
difficulties, and is, itself absolutely unattended by any.* Nothing 
further, then, needs be urged to overturn from the foundation that 
class of Infidel Objections which rejects the Word of God for the 
alleged contradictions to reason and science to be found in this 
part of its contents. The literal history was never intented to be 
understood as such ; it, therefore, can contradict nothing. The 
questions, then, respecting the manner and order in which the world 
was created, and respecting the vicissitudes which its surface has 
undergone; whether all the convulsions of which symptoms are 
apparent in the disposition of its strata, and in the vegetable and 
animal remains found in its bowels, took place before it was 
brought into a state fit for the habitation of man, or whether part 
of the indications have been occasioned by a general deluge which 
it has undergone since ; are matters which may safely be left for 
decision to the unfettered progress of science. The Word of God 
pronounces no dictum upon such subjects : and nothing which 
Science may ever bring to light respecting them, can, in the slight- 
est degree, affect the title of the Scriptures to be received as the 
Word of God. The only bearing of all real Science upon the Word 
of God is, to point to and confirm its true nature. 

2. The class of infidel objections which we are next to consider, 
is that which is drawn from apparent contradictions between the 
various statements made by the sacred writers. 

It is undoubtedly true, as is generally urged by the advocates of 
Revelation, that the greater part of these admit of a sufficient ex- 
planation when the context is fairly considered : but, as was stated 
* See Appendix, No. VII. 



824 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

in the second Lecture, if there are any which cannot thus be recon- 
ciled, it is, because, in such cases, the letter has yielded a little to 
the weight of the matters contained within ; a slight turn has been 
given it to make it express more fully the spiritual contents, 
respecting which alone it is the object of inspiration to impart in- 
struction.* Of this an example was given, and the principle more 
explicitly developed, in our last Lecture, from the history of Jeph- 
thah and his daughter. Though the circumstances related are 
true, they may not immediately exhibit the whole truth, as far as 
the outward history is concerned. " Just so much is recorded as 
conveys the true spiritual sense, and no more : and Divine 
Wisdom, which only regards things eternal, deems it of no moment 
whatever, if an impression be thus left of transient events different 
from the true one."f Admit this principle, (and if we admit that 
a Revelation from God must primarily treat of spiritual subjects, 
it will be difficult to dispute it,) and we shall find no instances of 
seeming contradiction which can occasion the smallest embarrass- 
ment to the candid inquirer. 

(1.) In the case, for instance, of the turning of the waters of 
Egypt into blood, by Moses and Aaron ; when it is afterwards said 
that " the magicians did so with their enchantments ;" upon which 
the Deist asks, When all the water of Egypt was changed before, 
how could the magicians repeat the operation? J — It is here well 
answered from the letter, that the context shews that water was 
still attainable for the experiment, since we read, two verses below, 
that " the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to 
drink." If, however, it had been more difficult to account for the 
manner in which the magicians obtained their water, there still 
would have been a necessity, to convey the spiritual lesson in- 
tended, that the narrative should be so framed as to imply in the 
letter, that all the waters of Egypt were changed into blood by 
Moses and Aaron, and yet that the magicians performed a like 
miracle afterwards. The subject here spiritually treated of is re- 
specting the false persuasions which adhere to those who cultivate 
natural science, but oppose themselves to the will of God and the 
truth of his Word, and respecting the judgments with which they 
are visited to compel them to desist. The waters of Egypt are all 
the truths possessed by such persons : blood, when considered in 

• P. 27, 28. f p - 270 > 271. % See the first Lecture, p. 17. 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 325 

any way different from its proper relation, is the symbol of truth to 
which violence is done by wresting it from its just application. 
Moses is the type and representative of that Law or Word which 
was given by his instrumentality ; and Aaron, as his prophet, or 
spokesman, represents the true doctrine or instruction which that 
teaches. The miracle, therefore, was performed by them, to in- 
dicate, that, before the wicked are finally condemned, their real 
state, as Divine Truth discovers it, is shewn to them. Eut " the 
magicians did so with their enchantments," to represent how the 
natural man finds excuses for not setting his heart to consider the 
divine judgments when openly displayed before him, referring them 
to other causes : in fact, the magicians are the proper types of that 
ingenious mode of reasoning from fallacies, which resolves the most 
express interferences »of Deity into the common operations of 
nature. The spiritual lesson, surely, is deeply interesting, and the 
analogies from which it results self-evident : to yield those analo- 
gies is the main thing regarded in the construction of the letter : 
and when matters so weighty are to be expressed, it surely is more 
important that the language of the sacred history should be such as 
gives the spiritual contents in all their fulness, than that it should 
be absolutely free from obscurity in regard to all the minutiae of the 
literal details ! 

But the difiiculties in the literal narratives of the Word of God 
which appear most considerable, to those who do not attend to the 
proper design with which all the narratives of the Word of God are 
constructed, are those which are presented by the frequently vary- 
ing accounts of the four Evangelists. 

(2.) The question, why so many as four authentic Gospels 
should have been written, has embarrassed not a few inquirers. 
Many, even of those who have no prejudice against them on ac- 
count of any part of their contents, would be glad of a plausible 
pretext for ejecting some of them from the Canon : thus the cele- 
brated Michaelis, entertaining the common notions of inspiration, 
regarding it as a personal and permanent endowment, and being at 
a loss for a certain rule to discriminate between compositions 
which are inspired and such as are not, would fain limit the inspi- 
ration of the New Testament to the Apostle's writings alone ; and 
he intimates that no small advantage would result from accepting 
Apostleship as the criterion of inspiration, since there would then 



326 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

be but two Gospels which we should be concerned to harmonize.* 
13ut if we regard the historical Scriptures as containing throughout 
a spiritual meaning, and conclude that, where the same general 
fact is variously related, it is for the sake of teaching the same 
general spiritual lesson, with some specific modifications ; we shall 
have no need to wish that the number of inspired books were fewer, 
or to murmur at their Divine Author for the abundance of his 
benefits. 

The Apostle and Evangelist John concludes his gospel with 
observing, " There are also many other things which Jesus did, 
the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even 
the world itself could not contain the books that should be written." 
This would be an extravagant hyperbole indeed, if it referred to 
the acts of Jesus as they appeared in their, simple performance ; 
but it becomes a sober truth, if we understand by it, all that was 
included and involved within the outward appearances. Only let 
it be acknowledged, or supposed even, that Jesus was " the Word" 
or Divine Truth itself "made flesh f," thus was God Incarnate; 
and it follows inevitably, that there must have been an infinity of 
meaning in every one both of his words and of his actions ; and it 
may be easily conceived, that one mode of narrating them would be 
insufficient for their full representation. 

Perhaps, also, in agreement with that unvarying constancy with 
which all the divine operations follow fixed laws, there may be 
some divine law which rendered it necessary that the Gospels 
should neither be fewer nor more than/ew: indeed, if inspiration 
be allowed to them, such must be the fact; since it were a contra- 
diction in terms to affirm, that Divine Inspiration produced the 
exact number of four Gospels by chance. It is somewhat remark- 
able, that we read respecting the "river which went out of Eden to 
water the garden," that " from thence it was parted, and became 
into four heads J:" and it seems possible that the coincidence was 
not unintentional, which was noticed by an ancient father ; that 
" there were four Evangelists, four rivers of Paradise, four corners 
and four rings to the ark of the covenant §:" not that the first of 
these circumstances was the cause of the others, nor even that the 

* Introd. by Marsh, Vol. i. Ch. iii. Sec. 3 ; Vol. iii. Pt. i. Ch. ii. Sees, l&o; 
Ch. vi. Sec. 2. 

j- John i. 14. J Gen. ii. 10. § Jerome, apud Lardner, vol. xii. p. 82. 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 327 

others were provided to form types of the first; but that they all 
owed their origin to the same general principle ; — that the same 
law regulating the descent of divine things into nature, governed 
the one circumstance as the others. Now, what could the rivers of 
Paradise represent, but the streams of truth and wisdom which 
nourished the mind of man in his paradisiacal state? And why 
were there four of them, but because that number expresses fulness 
and abundance ? for it is a number which is used in reference to 
the four quarters of the world, — the east, west, north, and south, 
— in connexion with which it is frequently mentioned in the Scrip- 
tures*; and while each of these, singly, refers to some specific 
quality, the four together manifestly stand for the whole. So, if 
the four rivers of Paradise, together, were representative of the 
truth and wisdom, in all their fulness and abundance, which, in the 
primeval ages, animated and endowed the human mind ; each of 
them must have been the symbol of some general class of these 
graces. What this is, is discoverable from the import, in the lan- 
guage of Analogy, of the four quarters, from which the number four 
draws its signification of fulness. The east, being considered as the 
seat of the sun, represents much the same as the sun does, — a 
state of love, and of the illumination immediately proceeding from 
love, in its highest intensity ; and the west is the same general 
state in a lower degree : so the south is expressive of a state of in- 
telligence, with its attendant charity, in the highest brightness; 
and the north of the same as verging towards obscurity. Thus the 
east and west, and the south and north, are to each other, re- 
spectively, as the internal and external of one general principle. If 
the cardinal points did not bear, in the language of Analogy, which 
is that of the Word of God, some such meaning, would they be so 
frequently noticed in that Word ; and this even in its prophecies 
and visions?! Now what if four Gospels were given, describing 
the history of the birth and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, with 
a reference to these four general states ? to be divine streams of 
truth and wisdom, possessing, respectively, these general qualities? 

* As when John " saw four angels standing on the four corners of the 
earth, holding the four winds of the earth." Rev. vii. 1. 

t See Ezekiel's vision of the New Temple, in the last nine chapters of his 
book, and John's of the New Jerusalem : Rev. xxi. For the general frequency 
with which the quarters are mentioned, see a Concordance. 



323 



PLENARY IiNSPIRATION OF 



[LECT. 



to form the unfailing rivers of the Christian Paradise, — the church, 
— supplying to its inhabitants the waters of life? I throw out 
this suggestion, not as a certain truth, but because, to me, it yields 
a probable reason for the number of the Gospels, and because it 
includes ideas, which, as we shall see presently, tend considerably 
to clear up the mystery of their varying statements. To me, also, 
it appears quite evident, that the obviously distinct characters of 
the several Gospels tally remarkably with those which this view 
supposes. Will not all who venerate these sacred narratives con- 
fess, that the Gospel of John displays the highest order of the illu- 
mination here alluded to, treating more openly of the highest sub- 
jects of divine illumination, which are, the true nature and character 
of Him whose history it relates, and the necessity of love to his 
name? that the Gospel of Luke, with its sweet delineations of 
charity, and luminous statements of so many essential truths, ranks 
next in clearness ? and that those of Matthew and Mark, though 
fully imbued with the same spirit, treat their subjects in a more 
external manner, or clothe them with a somewhat thicker veil, and 
are to the former, respectively, what the north and west are to the 
south and east ? 

(3.) Supposing there to be any truth in this view of the subject, 
the reader of the Gospels would expect, that, in recording any 
transaction, each Evangelist would relate such of the circumstances 
attending it as belonged to the proper character of his Gospel, and 
would omit others: and if there are any cases in which the circum- 
stances related by different Evangelists are quite incompatible with 
each other, he would expect further, that the narrative of the facts, 
as they actually appeared to the senses of the beholders, would 
most probably be found in one of those Gospels, (Matthew's or 
Mark's,) which treat the subjects under their most external form ; 
whilst the seemingly incongruous circumstances, if any ', mentioned 
by the others, equally belong to the transaction, but exhibit the in- 
ward state of mind of the parties concerned, which did not mani- 
festly appear in the words or actions actually spoken or performed, 
but yet were as really present as those words or actions themselves. 

This suggestion may be illustrated in a very familiar manner. 
Every one knows how frequently the words and actions of persons 
in society greatly differ from their inward thoughts and inclinations. 
To take a rather coarse, but too common example : how often do. s 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 329 

the greedy expectant of a profitable reversion, express with his lips 
k great desire for the restoration of the sick possessor's health, 
while the language of his heart is, "I wish you were dead, out of 
the way !" Now, if these words were actually ascribed to him by a 
narrator who knew the heart, there would be no real contradiction 
between this account and that of another who reported the language 
of his tongue : they would both record different parts of the same 
transaction, and both records would be true, though one of them 
could have flowed from the pen of none but an inspired writer. 
This is so obvious an idea, that I remember to have seen it very 
pleasantly illustrated in a fable for the instruction of youth. The 
writer imagines the existence of an edifice called the Palace of 
Truth : the inmates of which are unconsciously compelled to speak 
and act according to their real thoughts and inclinations : the con- 
sequence is, that they are continually disgusting each other by 
rudeness of language and demeanour, whilst they fancy themselves 
to be behaving with perfect good manners, and saying the civilest 
things imaginable. Who doubts that the universe is, to its Ar- 
chitect, a Palace of Truth, in which the inmost thoughts are as 
audible as the outward declarations ? 

But not only is there frequently this palpable difference between 
the thoughts and inclinations and the words and actions — a dif- 
ference of which the parties themselves are sensible ; but doubtless 
there is much more included within every single idea of thought 
than comes to the apprehension of him who conceives ; t : and if the 
moving springs from which it arises, with all their complications, 
were discovered to him, they would sometimes be so different from 
what he himself suspects, that he would hardly recogn.se himself 
in them, though they belonged to the very essence of his distin- 
guishing character. If then these unconscious thoughts and in- 
clinations were actually ascribed to him by the pen of that Om- 
niscience to which they are all known, the picture drawn of him 
would still be in exact accordance with the reality, though the like- 
ness would not be discernible to a superficial observer. 

We now, I apprehend, shall be in possession of the true prin- 
ciples for reconciling the seeming discrepancies of the divinely 
inspired recorders of the Gospel-history. — When circumstances are 
omitted by one Evangelist which are mentioned by another, it is, 
because they belong to a different specific modification of the same 



330 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

general spiritual lesson, and, in fact, to a different order of Divine 
Truth, from those which it is within the province of that Evangelist 
to deliver. — When, if ever, the circumstances are such as could not, 
both, have outwardly occurred, one of them is the expression of the 
state of mind of the parties, within or above their outward speech 
and actions: it gives such developments of inward character as 
would have taken place had the parties been speaking or acting in 
the Palace of Truth; and, to carry on the allegory, it belongs, 
sometimes to the lower and sometimes to the upper stones of that 
edifice, or is more near to, or more remote from, the actual con- 
sciousness of the actors or speakers. 

From theory, let us now descend to facts, and try the applica- 
tion of our principles to the actual relations of the Gospels. 

(4.) A remarkable example of variations, from both these 
causes, is, I conceive, afforded by the history, as delivered by the 
four Evangelists, of the treatment of the Lord Jesus Christ at his 
crucifixion, and of his behaviour on the cross. Matthew and Mark, 
agreeably to their office of presenting things as they appeared to 
the outward observer, and also, as they were perceived by the 
parties in the lowest and most external sphere of their thoughts 
and feelings, are very full, especially the former, in the detail of 
the cruel insults which were heaped upon the Saviour in that dismal 
scene. They describe all the bitterness of his temptation thence 
arising, and the severity of his mental as well as bodily suffering. 
They record his despairing exclamation, " My God, my God, why 
hast thou forsaken me* :" and these, as far as can be gathered 
from them, were the only words uttered from the cross. Luke, on 
the contrary, states much less of the aggravating scoffs with which 
the Eedeemer was assailed as he hung, and narrates nothing in his 
conduct which indicates that the sufferings inflicted on him engaged 
much of his attention. According to this Gospel, when going to 
execution, he says to the mourning women, " Daughters of Jeru- 
salem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your 
children. "f Instead of any exclamation of despair upon the cross, 
we have this effusion of imperturbable confidence : "Father, into 
thy hands I commend my spirit % :" and these, with the en- 
couraging declaration to one of the thieves, and a prayer for his 
murderers, were, as far as can be gathered from this Evangelist, 

* Matt, xxvii. 4.0, Mark xv. 34. f Ch. xxiii. 28. t Vcr - 46 » 



VI.] THE SCULPTURES ASSERTED. 331 

the only words uttered by him in that situation. How plain then 
is it, that Luke relates the perceptions and feelings of Jesus on 
this occasion, as they existed in a sphere of his mind above that, 
the sensations of which are recorded by Matthew and Mark ; with 
the words which he spoke from this different order of sentiments ! 
And still more is this the case with the narrative of John. This 
seems to describe his feelings in a sphere of his mind to which no 
consciousness whatever of his indignities and sufferings reached. 
It therefore does not at all notice the insults addressed to him on 
the cross. He is represented as occupied with no considerations 
whatever which regarded himself. To represent his care of the 
church, which ever dwells with those of whom " the disciple whom 
he loved" was a type, "he saith to his mother," in reference to 
that disciple, " Woman, behold thy son !" and to the disciple, who 
thenceforth took her to his own home, " Behold thy mother I"* 
To express his ardent desire for man's salvation, and " that the 
Scripture might be fulfilled," he exclaimed, " I thirst."f And, so 
far from indicating any feeling bordering upon despair, he does not 
even express any sense of needing support : he does not, even in 
appearance, refer to any Divine Helper out of himself; but, ex- 
periencing already a perfect consciousness of his union with Divinity, 
and "knowing that all things were now accomplished" necessary to 
effect that union, and with it to secure the redemption of mankind, 
he simply, and, with divine composure, says, "It is finished." J 

Now though these very different narratives, may not, regarded 
only as to the letter, be irreconcilable with each other ; though it is 
probable that all the circumstances recorded by each Evangelist 
did actually occur ; and though the very dissimilar speeches re- 
lated might all actually be spoken : yet every one must see, that 
the different narratives and the different speeches breathe different 
feelings, and belong to decidedly different classes of sentiment ; 
which would have been broken and confused had they been jumbled 
into one continued discourse, but are preserved in all their dis- 
tinctness and beauty, by. the wise provision of Providence, that- 
several Gospels shoUd be written. 

(5.) Another striking example of the excellence of this arrange- 
ment, is afforded by the account of the conduct of the two thieves, 
as related by Matthew and Mark, and by Luke. 

* Ch. xix. 26, 27. f Yer. 28. J Ver. 30. 



332 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT, 

Without particularly dwelling upon the behaviour of these un- 
happy men, Matthew, after mentioning the taunts of the chief 
priests and scribes, adds, " The thieves also, which were crucified 
with him, cast the same in his teeth* :" Mark also says, " And 
they that were crucified with him reviled himf :" a circumstance 
deeply aggravatory of the Saviour's sufferings, when he had to 
endure the insults of the very outcasts of society; and therefore well 
suited to be introduced in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, the 
nature and design of which necessarily included the insisting upon 
such details. Luke, however, who does not give so much of the 
scoffs of the priests and scribes, mentions the reviling of one of the 
thieves only, and this, chiefly, to contrast it with the becoming 
behaviour of the other : his words are these : " And one of the 
malefactors which were hanged with him, railed on him, saying, 
If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other rebuked him, 
saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same con- 
demnation ? and we indeed justly ; for we receive the due reward 
of our deeds : but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said 
unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy king- 
dom. "X Now whether both these narratives describe things which 
took place in outward form, just as they are related, or not ; it is 
certain, that, spiritually, both narratives are true, and that both 
were necessary for conveying the spiritual lesson intended. 

Thieves, in the Word, are types of those who deprive others of 
truths by infusing false and heretical opinions ; as, also, of those 
who possess the knowledge of truth, but pervert it from its proper 
object, which is, to lead to a life of goodness : they likewise repre- 
sent such as arrogate to themselves what belongs to the Lord. The 
two thieves, then, are they who act thus, either from a confirmed 
principle of evil in the will, or from a false principle assumed by 
tiic understanding ; and they thus will represent the Jew and the 
Gentile world. Both these classes of spiritual thieves, viewed as tjo 
their doctrinal sentiments, reviled the Son of man; both Jews and 
Gentiles entertained opinions adverse to the true doctrines of the 
Word of God ; and this is represented by the fact as stated by 
Matthew and Mark, that " the thieves, also, cast the same in his 
teeth :" "they that were crucified with him reviled him." But though 
both classes thus reviled the Lord externally, it was only with one 
* Ch. xxvii. 44. f Ch. xv. 32. J Luke xxiii. 39 to 42. 



VI.] THE SCRIPTU11ES ASSERTED. 333 

mat the outward conduct proceeded from an internal ground: Luke, 
therefore, who relates the circumstances as they exist in, or flow 
from, an interior sphere, ascribes determined malevolence to but one 
of the malefactors : the other, who is the type of those who, like 
the Gentiles, entertain false sentiments merely from ignorance, and 
of those who fall into improper conduct, because they have not 
had the advantage of such instruction as would teach them 
better, when brought, even in this extremity, into the presence ot 
the Son of man, — made acquainted with the Truth Itself, — feels 
all the compunction that a conviction of his error and mis- 
conduct ought to excite, and solicits the mercy of him whom he is 
thus brought to know : and because no one in heart can acknow- 
ledge the Lord but from some good principle, Jesus answers, "To- 
day," — in this state, — " thou shalt be with me in paradise." 
Considered then as representative characters, — as the types of two 
masses of spiritual thieves, there evidently is no contradiction 
whatever between the accounts of Matthew and Luke: they de- 
scribe different parts of the same general facts, and parts so distinct, 
being those which constitute its external form and its internal, that 
they could not possibly have been included in the same narrative. 
And the case will be the same, if, without looking at the thieves as 
types of general classes, we regard them as individual transgressors 
of two different characters. Many a one has been led, by untu- 
tored passions, into excesses which he never deliberately purposed, 
and has afterwards been awakened, by the voice of Truth, to the 
most sincere feelings of remorse. The law may have been so far 
violated, that the gibbet must expiate the offence : but who will 
affirm that the redeeming feelings in the heart of the sufferer will 
go for nothing in his final account, though, being beyond the eye 
of the human judge, they cannot change his doom here ? Every 
criminal act reviles the Son of man : but we cannot positively 
affirm, of every one who has been hurried into the commission of a 
criminal act, that his heart does the same. The outward conduct, 
then, of these two characters, in which they appeared similar to 
each other, is described by Matthew and Mark, and their inward 
state, in which they were dissimilar, by Luke. 

Seeing then the spiritual reason for the variation of these narra- 
tives is so evident, and the spiritual lessons they inculcate are so 
completely satisfactory ; to know, how far the facts mentioned by 
Matthew and Luke appeared manifestly before the spectators of the 



334 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

scene, becomes a matter of perfect indifference. It may be true, 
as some of the commentators suppose, that both the Gospels relate 
facts as they happened ; that both the thieves at first joined in 
blasphemous language, but that afterwards one repented, and be- 
haved as stated by Luke : supposing it were so, the view we have 
offered above clearly explains why neither Evangelist states both 
facts : to have done this, would have confused the spiritual sense, 
and would have been a deviation from the proper character of his 
Gospel. It may be true, again, that Luke alone relates the facts 
as they happened, and that the penitent thief never reviled with 
the other : and in this case, whether we suppose, with most of the 
critics, that Matthew and Mark, who sa t y, " the thieves" and 
" they" loosely, and not " both the thieves," and " both of them," 
emphatically, use the plural number for the singular by the gram- 
matical figure called enallage (of which they produce several exam- 
ples) ; or whether we conclude that they were really ignorant of 
the different circumstances recorded by Luke; we still see, as 
before, that there is no mistake in the matter, and that the spiritual 
sense of the whole transaction would have been mutilated had not 
both records of it been made. Or, finally, the outwardly apparent 
circumstances might only have been those given by Matthew and 
Mark ; — either, positively, both thieves did revile, or this might 
be said because one of them, though silent, gave no outward indi- 
cation of dissent from the conduct of the other; and still it may be 
perfectly true that the language of their heart was that given by 
Luke, though what this spoke, in the penitent, was only audible to 
him to whom all hearts are known : if, however, such sentiments 
were there actually heard by Him, he did not make one Evangelist 
contradict another, when he caused him to give them an open 
tongue. One or other of these three solutions must be the true 
one ; ichich, is to us of no moment whatever : and it is plain from 
either of them, that the Gospels are not here really at variance, but 
only relating different parts of the same transaction, which all be- 
longed to it with equal truth. 

We mentioned, in our first Lecture, two of the other seeming 
difficulties on which infidel writers have founded objections ; and 
as, though solvable upon the same principles, they rather differ in 
kind from those just considered, it may be expected that we shall 
not dismiss them without specific notice. 

(6.) The first of these is the circumstance, that in the history of 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 335 

the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, as delivered by Matthew* 
and by Lukef, there is an inversion of the order of two of the 
principal facts ; the first Evangelist making the devil set the Sa- 
viour on a pinnacle of the temple, before he shews him, from a 
high mountain, all the kingdoms of the world; whereas, Luke 
places this latter circumstance before the other. Eegarded as a 
record of outward facts, there must here be allowed to exist a 
difficulty ; but there will remain none at all when it is admitted, 
that to communicate information respecting the same general spi- 
ritual fact is the main design in both narratives; but that this 
general fact includes two leading branches, one of which is repre- 
sented by one Evangelist, and the other by the other. 

It must here be observed, that all the circumstances of this 
temptation prove strongly the generally spiritual nature of the 
Gospel-history, and evince that it treats of spiritual subjects under 
natural representatives. Eor who can imagine that Jesus Christ, 
as to his person, was thus at the disposal of the devil ? was per- 
sonally transported by him from the wilderness to a high mountain, 
and thence to the summit of the temple in " the holy city?" or that, 
to effect the temptation, Satan shewed himself in proper form, and 
carried it on by actual colloquy ? And where could the mountain 
be found, so " exceeding high," that from the top of it might be 
seen, by any optics, " all the kingdoms of the world?" Some of 
the critics would surmount this difficulty, by wishing us to believe, 
that the world, here, only means the land of Judsea : but how will 
the phrase, " all the kingdoms of the w^orld," apply to this little 
speck of it? Doubtless, then, it was in spirit, and in vision, that 
these things were presented to the Saviour's perceptions ; just as 
Ezekiel was transported "in the visions of God to Jerusalem {," 
and as John also was " carried away in the spirit to a great 
and high mountain." § Thus the transaction, being altogether a 
spiritual one, must bear, in all its circumstances, a spiritual 
signification. 

A mountain is a symbol, in the Scriptures, of an exalted state of 
love, either heavenly or infernal : to be incited, thence, to desire 
the possession of all the kingdoms of the world, is to be tempted 
with the lust of self-aggrandizement, either as regards the monopoly 
of all power, or of all wealth, or of both : to be set upon the pin- 
* Ch. iv. 1 to 11. f Ch. iv. 1 to 13, % Ezek, viii. 3. § Rev. xxi. 10. 



336 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

uncle of the temple, and thence incited to do a rash act that 
includes the persuasion of possessing divine power, is to be tempted 
by a still more extravagant species of the lust of power, — what 
may be called the ecclesiastical thirst for dominion, — that which 
aims at sovereignty over men's souls as well as their bodies. But 
the ultimate end which is proposed by any passion that sways the 
human breast, is what determines its positive quality. There 
doubtless have been Popes and Grand Lamas, who., in arrogating 
dominion over the souls of men, have made this pretension and lust 
subservient to the desire of temporal power and wealth : the latter 
have been their supreme objects of regard; and the former has been 
valued as a means to the attainment of these ends. These then 
have yielded to the suggestions of Satan, as they are represented by 
Matthew. Other occupants of the pontifical thrones of Rome and 
of Lassa, have unquestionably been possessed, as their ruling aim 
and object, with the lust of spiritual domination, and have grasped 
at temporal power and wealth as calculated to promote it : These 
then iiave adopted the persuasions of the devil, as they are 
arranged by Luke. Thus, while it is perfectly evident that there 
exist these two general kinds of the lust of domination, it appears 
no less certain, that each of them undergoes a modification, as it is 
made subservient, or paramount, to the other. This is even indi- 
cated by the Evangelists in the minute distinctions of their lan- 
guage : thus Luke, who represents the appetite for temporal power 
and wealth as subservient to the ecclesiastical lust, calls the symbol 
of the state, simply a " high mountain ;" whilst Matthew, who ex- 
hibits it as predominant, exalts its symbol into " an exceeding high 
mountain." Now it cannot be doubted, since the Saviour " was 
in all points tempted as we are*," — was made sensible, in the 
human part of his constitution, of the strongest instigations to 
every evil that ever beset the most corrupt child of Adam ; that the 
tempter injected the propensity to both these general evils in both 
these states of their development. But the only way, in the lan- 
guage of analogies, in which the two forms of them could be 
described, was, by placing the representatives of them before, and 
after, each other, respectively. To have done this in the same 
narrative would have appeared a strange tautology ; neither would 
it have expressed the order of their manifestation or existence, the 
* Heb. iv. 15. 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 337 

one abiding within, or occupying a more interior sphere than the 
other. Therefore the symbolic description of each is given in a 
separate book : and as Matthew's Gospel treats of things in their 
more exterior, and Luke's in their more interior developments, 
therefore, in agreement with the respective characters of the nar- 
ratives, the more exterior and superficial development of these 
direful evils forms the subject of the temptation as described by the 
first Evangelist ; while the latter represents them in their more 
interior form, and opens, in its still deeper recesses, their diabolical 
nature. 

(7.) The only other case which we have to notice, is that in 
which Matthew cites a text, as from the prophet Jeremiah, which 
is only to be found in the book of Zechariah : he gives it thus : 
" Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, 
saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him 
that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value, 
and gave them for the potter's field; as the Lord appointed me."* 
In an ordinary writer, this certainly would argue strange negli- 
gence : but what if, occurring where it does, it affords a positive 
argument for the Evangelist's plenary inspiration ? What if it 
should be absolutely impossible for a writer whose pen was irre- 
sistibly guided by the Spirit of God, to cite these words, how well 
soever he might know that he had read them in Zechariah, without 
ascribing them to Jeremiah? Such, I apprehend, will readily 
appear to be the fact. And indeed, how is it possible that the 
change of name could have originated in mistake ? Is it credible 
that Matthew could know so little of the Scriptures as to be 
ignorant in what book the words were extant ? And if so mon- 
strous an improbability might for a moment be supposed, is it 
imaginable that, among those to whom he first communicated his 
Gospel, there was none who possessed sufficient knowledge of the 
ancient Word, with which every Jew was familiar from his cradle, 
to inform him of the erratum ? Eeally the difficulties of conceiv- 
ing it to be an unintended error, are greater than those of sup- 
posing that it was a dictate from the Spirit of God : they indeed 
are such as directly point to this conclusion. And in this we 
shall find an easy and natural solution of the whole seeming in- 
consistency. 

* Matt, xxvii. 9, 10 ; Comp. Zech. xi. 12, 13. 15 



*33 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

If the Word of God be the Word of God indeed, it is a mere 
truism to affirm, that the Spirit which dictated it cannot possibly 
regard it as the work of men : consequently, that Spirit can nevei 
mean to ascribe any of its books to the men whose names they 
bear. Every prophet who was commissioned to deliver any portion 
of the Word of God, became, ipso facto, a representative type of 
the Word of God itself : specifically, of that portion of it which he 
was the instrument of writing. Now every such portion of it has 
a distinctive character of its own, more or less obviously discrimi- 
nated. So plain is this, in some instances, as to have become pro- 
verbial: thus Isaiah is commonly called the evangelical prophet, on 
account of his open annunciations of the incarnation of the Lord 
and his advent in the flesh ; and Jeremiah is popularly denominated 
the weeping prophet, for his pathetic lamentations over the fall and 
utter corruption of the Jewish Church, and its rejection and mal- 
treatment of the Word of God, in its personal type, the prophet 
himself, and in its still plainer type, the roll of inspired writing 
which Jehoiakim committed to the flames.* When therefore a 
prophet is cited by name in the inspired writings, it is not that 
prophet, personally, that was in the mind of the Spirit of God ; 
nor even the specific book which bears his name : but his name is 
used as a symbol of all that portion of Scripture which is of the 
same character as belongs, generally, to the writings of the prophet 
named, whether occurring in his book or in any other. Usually, 
indeed, it cannot but happen, that the passage quoted is in the 
book of the prophet who stands as the type of that species of divine 
composition which distinguishes his own writings: but where 
occasion occurs for citing a passage of a different character from 
that which belongs, in general, to the book in which it is found, 
and of the same as belongs to another principal prophet, Divine 
Inspiration, which regards the intrinsic qualities of things and not 
merely their external circumstances, adduces the quotation in the 
name of the latter prophet instead of the former. Of this, indeed, 
only this one instance occurs : it cannot, therefore, be illustrated 
by other examples : but this one itself is admirably illustrative of 
the principle, and points to it with a clearness which it were difficult 
to overlook. The weeping prophet, Jeremiah, we have noticed 
though a real character, is a striking personification of that specier 
* See Ch. xxxvi. 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 339 

of Divine Truth, or of that portion of the Divine Word, which 
treats of the utter corruption of the Jewish Church, and its mal- 
treatment of the Word : the latter is precisely the character of the 
divine declaration which is here cited as from him ; it treats of the 
low estimation in which the Word was at this time held by the 
Jews, who hoped to have purchased of Judas the power of destroy- 
ing its actual personification, the Word incarnate. And whilst this 
passage is so decidedly of the same character as distinguishes the 
writings of Jeremiah, it as evidently does not at all belong to the 
general character of the book of Zechariah, which is mostly com- 
posed in a cheering strain, and dwells more upon the restoration of 
the church, and her glorious state in consequence of receiving the 
Lord as the Word, than of her previous debasement and infidelity. 
The two subjects are nearly connected together, since the one event 
follows the other ; and hence the prophets seldom dwell long upon 
the desolation of the church and her rejection of the Lord, without 
some reference to her restoration and her reception of him : but 
the one subject constitutes the predominant topic of Jeremiah, and 
the other of Zechariah : wherefore the Spirit of Inspiration desig- 
nates the statements which even Zechariah delivers on the former 
subject, by the name of its proper type, Jeremiah. 

Surely I may be allowed to say, how satisfactory, and how 
beautiful, is this explanation ! It is a perfectly easy solution of a 
difficulty, which, upon every other theory, is insurmountable.* 
But from our system it flows unforced ; and not only so, but as a 
natural and necessary result. May we not then assume, that both 
the solution and the system must indubitably be true ? 

The Doctrine that the Sacred Scriptures every where contain a 
spiritual sense, for the sake of conveying which the letter is con- 
structed, with a knowledge of the just mode of decyphering it by 
the Doctrine of Kepresentation and Analogy, will solve every other 
seeming contradiction in the statements of the inspired writers. 

* It is affirmed by some, that Jeremiah is named instead of Zechariah, 
because he anciently stood first in the copies of the prophets, and so might be 
taken as a name for them all : but that there is no authority for such an asser- 
tion, is sufficiently shewn in the Appendix, No. II. p. xiv. Others consider 
the name of Jeremiah to be an accidental interpolation; but certainly it 
were such an interpolation as it could never come into the head of any scribe 
to make. 



S-tO PLEXAE? INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

To examine, in this manner, all the passages in the Gospels which 
appear contradictory, would constitute a work of much interest : 
but our design in the present work is, simply to lay down the prin- 
ciples upon which they are to be solved, and to illustrate the 
applicability of the theory to the facts, by such examples as might 
be necessary for that purpose. This may now have been done. 
And I trust that it cannot but be seen, that varying statements, 
proceeding from inspired pens, may all equally be true, and may 
detail circumstances which equally belong to the same transaction, 
though sometimes, possibly, to such parts of it as were beyond the 
ken of ordinary observation, and could have been known to none 
but inspired writers. Of their inspiration, then, such circum- 
stances, fairly interpreted, actually become evidences. Thus in this 
case, as in every other, the system of interpretation which we pro- 
pose, wrests the weapons of the infidel out of his hands, and makes 
them assist in demonstrating the divinity of the Scriptures. 

3. On the Class of Objections which are drawn from the im- 
perfect morality of some of the distinguished characters of the 
Israelitish Church, little needs be added, after the view given of the 
design of the calling of that people, and of the nature of their his- 
tory, in our last Lecture. 

(1.) Admit the Israelites to have been chosen merely to repre- 
sent the subjects belonging to the church ; and consider all the 
persons distinguished among them as representative characters only; 
and all difficulties arising from the questionable morality of some 
of them immediately disappear. We then see, how the record may 
be essentially the Word of God, notwithstanding the craft imputed 
to the immediate founder of the nation, their adherence to eastern 
manners in regard to the intercourse of the sexes, and the acts of 
violence and treachery which several of their heroes and heroines 
scrupled not to commit. Some of these might perhaps be allow- 
able according to the laws of nations that prevailed in those distant 
ages : but still they were such as could not, themselves, have been 
agreeable to the divine will, or have been practised by persons who 
were the subjects of a spiritual dispensation. The slaughter, 
noticed in our first Lecture, of Eglon by Ehud, though effected 
under fair pretences, and thus by treachery, was indeed no more 
than would have been done, and gloried in, by the most illustrious 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. oil 

heroes of Greece and Rome, among whom tyrannicide, by whatever 
means accomplished, was deemed highly meritorious : but it may 
be doubted whether any national opinions or customs would justify 
the still more insidious act of Jael. What then ? Does this prove 
that the book in which they are recorded is not the Word of God ? 
Far from it. It only proves that the Jews were not the subjects 
of a real church, possessing inward principles of life and grace, 
but only of the type of a church, — of a dispensation which sym- 
bolized spiritual things by external acts, the performers of which 
might be far from any participation of spiritual feelings. 

(2.) How heavenly things might be occasionally represented 
even by acts of violence, has been shewn at large in the last Lec- 
ture : and when this is seen, every objection which the infidel can 
raise against the divine origin of the Scriptures on this ground, is 
entirely surmounted. We also see how greatly they en*, who pro- 
pose the exploits of the Jewish worthies, in their outward form, as 
things for the imitation of Christians; — a principle which, at 
various periods, has been adopted by fanatics, who have perpetrated 
the greatest outrages under its sanction. The crimes of the Old- 
Testament saints, as they are considered, have, likewise, always 
formed the main bulwark of Antinomianism ; which hence has in- 
vented the profane sentiment, 'that the saints are often permitted to 
fail into great sins, to convince them that salvation is by faith only, 
and to make them more illustrious examples of the sovereignty of 
grace. But when David, for instance, is no longer considered as 
the pattern of a saint, but as the type of one, there is an end to 
the pretended sanction of lust and cruelty, drawn, and which I 
have myself known to be drawn and openly avowed, from some of 
his actions. The worst parts of his conduct will then only be 
viewed as symbolizing the discovery which must be made to the 
highly graduated Christian, to become the ground of his humility 
and self-abhorrence, of the tendencies to evil which lurk iu the 
recesses of his heart ; not as intimating that he may appropriate 
and practice such evils, and hope for impunity. This will be per- 
fectly evident, if we consider, for a moment, who that Saint or 
Holy One specifically is, of whom David was eminently a type. 

The king of Israel is allowed, in his highest reference, to be a type 
of the " King of saints*," — the Lord Jesus Christ. But, he, it is 
* Rev, sv. 3. 



342 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

admitted by all, though " in all points tempted as we are/' yet 
was " without sin."* Sin is evil appropriated in the will and 
thought, and brought, when convenient opportunity serves, into 
act. Jesus was "without sin:" how then could David, in his 
fall, be a type of him ? Because, though never was the slightest 
evil appropriated by the Eedeemer in will, thought, or act, but 
always instantly rejected with a "Get thee hence, Satanf;" yet, 
in the nature taken by him from the human mother, were, before 
it was renewed by spiritual conflicts, the same tendencies as belong 
to ordinary humanity : As the Apostle declares, " In all things it 
behoved him to be made like unto his brethren p. " and since, in the 
nature taken from the mother, the likeness was so complete, " we 
have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of 
our infirmities." § Had it been otherwise, it would have been im- 
possible for Hell to have approached him with temptations, and 
thus the great end of his coming would have been defeated; which, 
according to the same Apostle, was, " that through death he might 
destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil ; and 
deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their life-time 
subject to bondage." || The death he underwent included, not only 
the death of the material frame, but of every principle of his con- 
stitution which partook of human infirmity, and which presented 
an impediment to his returning to perfect union with his Father ; 
and this death he was undergoing through the whole period of his 
life: "I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I 
straitened till it be accomplished l"^f The fall of David, then, re- 
presented, not the falling into sin of Him who was " without sin," 
but the deep temptations undergone by him, from the action of 
"him that had the power of death" upon those principles of 
human nature appertaining to him which were susceptible of the 
influence : the remorse and penitence of David typified the utter 
rejection, by Jesus, of every thing in his nature which could be 
susceptible of such an excitement; and David's restoration to 
divine favour, the renewal of the Lord's human nature, and of every 
principle in it, by communication from his divine. 

Now how could the perceptions and feelings which must have been 
experienced by Jesus during the suffering of this inward process, be 

* Heb. iv. 15. f Matt. iv. 10. $ Heb. ii. 17. § Ch. iv. 15. 
U Ch. ii. 14, 15. % Luke xii. 50. 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 313 

otherwise represented, than by a detail of corresponding outward 
acts? And what could those outward acts which were positively sinful 
typify, in regard to Him who was without sin, but his experimental 
discovery, that the tendencies to it were inherent in that human 
nature of which he had become a partaker, and which in him, as in 
us, was to be " made perfect through sufferings?"* For he, also, 
"learned obedience by the things which he suffered; and being 
made perfect^ he became the Author of eternal salvation unto all 
them that obey him."f 

What then is the doctrine taught by this part of the history of 
David, to the Christian ? What but this ? that he has in his nature 
the seeds of the evils which in David proceeded to such flagitious 
acts. And what is the practical lesson taught by this part of 
David's conduct, viewing him as the type of a saint, and decypher- 
ing the type by comparing it with the known Antitype, the king of 
saints? that it is excusable in the Christian, because he has the 
seeds of such evils in his nature, to adopt them in his will, or 
thought, or act, as was done by tlie type? No! but that, like the 
great Antitype, who alone is his pattern, he is to engage in conflict 
with them within; to reject them as soon as he is made sensible of 
their existence in his breast ; and to seek from above for that re- 
newal of the heart, which, far from favouring the least tendency to 
evil, delights in nothing but goodness and purity. This is the real 
use which is to be made by the Christian of the history of David. 
Referred to his acknowledged chief Antitype, it becomes intelligible 
at once. We are to study him as a type, not as an example, and 
are to take for our example the Antitype alone. Accordingly, the 
Lord never says to his disciples, " Follow David," but continually, 
"Follow me."! 

Under such views of the Word of God as these, what becomes of 
the blasphemous imputation of its encouraging immorality ? 

(4.) With regard to the charge of Insignificance, brought against 
great part of the Word of God, it cannot now be necessary to say 
a syllable. When it is seen that every part of the Sacred Records 
is profoundly significant, and that the most apparently trifling cere- 

* Heb. ii. 10. f Ch. v. 8, 9. 

t Mat. iv. 19: viii. 22; ix. 9; xvi. 24; xix. 21; &c 



344 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

monies, directions, and statements, include representations of things 
of all others the most important to immortal beings ; the imputa- 
tion against them of Insignificance comes with the same weight, as 
would attend a decree, censuring the structure of the universe, and 
pronouncing the unimportance of the stars, issued by a conclave of 
moles. 

After this view of the bearing of all Infidel objections against the 
Word of God as rightly understood, may it not be assumed as 
certain, that all such objections arise from taking a merely super- 
ficial view of the Sacred Scriptures, and from an utter ignorance of 
their true nature ? 

May I, then, now hope, that the affirmation made in the first 
Lecture* will be considered as made good ? Does it not clearly 
appear, that to adduce from such considerations as are urged by 
Deists an argument against the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, 
is entirely to mistake the whole nature of the case? Is it not 
evident, that the argument thence deduced falls to the ground of 
itself, as soon as the true nature of the Word of God is seen, and 
the design is regarded with which it was given to mankind ? In 
short, is it not a fact, that a view of the true nature of the Divine 
Word overturns from the foundation the whole fabric of Infidel 
Objections ? that it takes the ground on which the Infidel stands in 
making his objections, entirely away from under his feet ? 

III. But although the objections of Infidels avail nothing what- 
ever against the Word of God, as it is in itself, they are not so 
contemptible when urged against the views of it which commonly 
prevail. They afford no argument at all when advanced to prove 
that the Scriptures have no origin in Divine Authority ; but they 
yield an irrefragable one when applied, as they only ought to be 
applied, to evince that the Scriptures must contain mucli more in 
their bosom than is extant on the surface. 

On this subject, then, I fain would address an earnest appeal to 
all Christian advocates, and to all the portion of the Christian 
world in general, who adhere to the merely literal interpretation. 
I would say to them, with all respect, Consider, my brethren, 
whose zeal in the cause of what you believe to be the truth I 
• Page 23. 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 345 

venerate, and who, I doubt not, are actuated by a sincere desire to 
uphold the credit of the Word of God, how much you compromise 
that credit, when you affirm, (as we have seen is now so generally 
the case,) that the Scriptures are every where to be understood 
according to the letter alone ; that no spiritual sense is to be 
looked for, unless, perchance, in those passages where it is ex- 
pressly referred to in the New Testament ; that the inspiration by 
which they were written, so far from being plenary, and dictating 
the very words to the writers, did not even secure them from any 
but " material errors." It is true, probably, that you have adopted 
these views of the Scriptures, from disgust at the absurdities and 
abominations which have formerly been advanced, drawn, as was 
pretended, from their spiritual sense : but are you sure, that while 
you thus flee from a lion, you have not been met by a bear?* Is 
the literal sense attended with no difficulties ? and is the abiding, 
simply, by it, an unfailing preservative from all delusion and error? 
Are not some of the greatest delusions, such as have just been 
noticed of the Antinomians and other fanatics, the offspring of the 
separated letter alone? Assuredly, then, even if, by embracing 
such ideas of the Word of God, you afforded no advantage to the 
enemies of religion, you deprive your own souls of great benefits, 
and expose yourselves to very serious mistakes. 

But when, by thus binding the understanding to the letter alone, 
you give so great odds to our Deistical and other adversaries, and 
so encumber the Christian cause with difficulties not its own, as to 
render it, in the eye of reason, almost untenable ; how serious in- 
deed does the mischief become ! The objections, for example, 
which are urged from the literal sense of the beginning of Genesis, 
are fully demonstrative against the credibility of that sense taken 
alone : they thus, as we have seen, point to the real divinity of the 
Word, by pointing to a spiritual sense : why then give them a 
direction, which, without abating an atom of their force, makes 
them fatal to the divinity of ( the Word altogether? The whole 
style of the narration in those chapters is such as might satisfy any 
one, that the literal sense is not that which is intended. Many 

* Amos v. 19. The lion, when mentioned in a bad sense, is the symbol of 
snch false persuasions as arise from the perversion of the interiors of the Word ; 
the bear, of such as result from abiding by the letter alone, without un- 
derstanding it. 

15* 



346 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

circumstances are introduced which are clearly designed, among 
their other uses, to demonstrate, that a spiritual sense only is what 
is proposed. In what a situation, then, is the modest inquirer 
placed, when he is told, that he must either give his faith to 
incredibilities which bear palpable marks that they were intended 
to be regarded as incredibilities, or must reject the record alto- 
gether ! Any one who believes in a God, may believe that, on 
occasions sufficiently important, a miracle may be performed, — a 
deviation may take place from the customary proceedings of nature; 
and he will not reject a narration assuming to be divine for 
affirming such facts : but the marvels of the first chapters of 
Genesis are not delivered as miracles, but as things in the com- 
mon course of events ; and the most extraordinary of them, — the 
talking of the serpent, — if it is to be taken as a miracle, was 
wrought, not by the hand of God, but of Satan ; of whom, never- 
theless, not a word is said in the letter. To insist then that the 
literal sense is here to be believed ; and not only so, is all that is 
to be believed ; if it is not crucifying the Son of man afresh, is 
delivering him, bound, into the hands of Pilate and his soldiers, to 
be by them mocked, and scourged, and crucified. The infidel, 
amid his scoffs, may now quote in extenuation the divine declara- 
tion, " He that hath delivered me unto thee, hath the greater sin."* 
Indeed, the literal interpreters ascribe such absurdities to the letter 
of the Word as are not to be found in it : for, as has been well re- 
marked, the Sacred Narrative does not, with these interpreters, 
refer the cause of the fall to the eating of the produce of any sort 
of natural fruit-tree whatever. But when Condorcet ridicules 
Christianity for imputing the origin of evil to Eve's eating an 
apple ; if he were asked where he learned this, when the Sacred 
Record says nothing of a tree that bore apples or any such fruit, 
but calls it " the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," — thus 
plainly intimating that a spiritual, not a natural tree is signified ; 
he might answer in excuse, " The orthodox told me so :" and 
Voltaire might make the same apology for his jests upon Eve's 
tete a tete with a serpent. How much better was the chance 
which Christianity stood with her adversaries, when Origen could 
reproach Celsus with dissembling what he could not but know, 
that the whole history is an allegory, and was so considered by 
* John xix. 11. 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 347 

those whom he was attacking! Were this the unanimous con- 
fession of Christians now, what modern Celsus would think of 
again levelling the shafts of ridicule, thus deprived of their point? 
Before he could find a butt to aim at, he must, like Bolingbroke, 
change sides with modern Christian advocates, and prove, what 
they have laboured at so long, that the literal -sense is what we are 
here to abide by : and as the proof of this would be as impossible 
to him as to them, this part of the Word of God would stand for 
ever invulnerable to his assaults. 

The difficulties under which the Christian advocate labours in 
defending the Scriptures, by their literal sense alone, from the 
charge of contradictions, are not, perhaps, quite so great ; but 
still they are such as ought to convince him of the necessity of 
recurring to higher views of the subject. I wish not to detract 
from the usefulness of the harmonists ; though I think that no one 
can ever have read what is called a Harmony of the Gospels, com- 
bining their respective narratives into one, without feeling himself 
in a maze of confusion, the consequence of its jumbling together 
things which Infinite Wisdom provided and intended should be 
kept distinct. I acknowledge, however, the validity of some of the 
solutions of seeming contradictions drawn out of the literal sense 
alone : but in general, I think, it must be allowed, that to seal 
that validity, and entitle it to pass without dispute, higher inter- 
pretations must be joined with them : for though the solutions 
drawn from the letter alone, in many instances may be true, a 
reason is still wanting why the appearance of a contradiction 
should exist, — why the direct literal interpretation should often be 
such as to involve a contradiction. It must be allowed, too, after 
all, that many of the solutions attempted to be drawn from the 
letter alone, so desperately torture it to wring them out, that, 
where doubt has once entered, tliey can never expel it. Your very 
friends confess this. " The violent methods," says Michaelis, 
" which have been used to reconcile the accounts of Mark and 
Luke with those of the other Evangelists, and the insuperable 
difficulty which has hitherto attended the harmony of the Gospels, 
have cast a dark shade on our religion, and the truth and sim- 
plicity of its history have been almost buried under the weight of 
explanations."* Why then, my brethren, not accept the views 
* Introd. Vol. i. Ch. iii. Sec 3. 



348 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

which alone can satisfactorily remove all difficulty ? Why present 
the Scripture as a jewel of agate, carved in such a manner as is 
little suited for ornament, and yet insist that its value consists in 
its outside appearance alone ; when the reasons of its peculiarity of 
form would immediately appear, were it known, that it was made 
to open, and that its singular shape arose from its exact adaptation 
to hold and preserve the rubies and diamonds which glow within ? 
Why allow the world to condemn as flaws, what are merely the 
junctures, designed to lead the examiner from the surface to the 
contents ? 

But again: Most certainly, none but such views as we have 
offered of the nature of the Israelitish dispensation, can meet the 
objections of the Deist on the score of the immoral conduct, and 
the acts of wrong and outrage, committed by those who, if we 
refuse to look beyond the letter, were the personal favourites of 
heaven. You deny, (most of you,) a typical character to any per- 
sons or actions which are not expressly recognised in that capacity, 
in the New Testament. You deny then such a character to Jael 
and her slaughter of Sisera: then how justify or excuse them? 
It is in vain to say, as some have done, that this was a transaction 
for which the performer alone was accountable, it not being owned 
by the God of the Scriptures ; whereas, as noticed in our first 
Lecture, it is expressly eulogized by the voice of prophecy. With 
what sort of feelings do you read of a woman's killing her 
guest in his sleep, while you believe that it was the act itself, 
and not something represented by it, which was really agreeable to 
him who hath said, " Thou shalt not kill?" Beautiful and impressive 
does the narrative become, when we read in it the manner in which 
wicked persons of the specific character represented by Sisera, 
endeavour to escape detection, by lurking behind the assumed ap- 
pearance of that species of good of which Jael is the type ; and 
how, when they have thus filled up the measure of their iniquity by 
adding hypocrisy to their other vices, they sink into a merely 
natural state, of which sleep is the symbol, and thence pass, un- 
consciously, into complete spiritual death ; nailed to the earth,— 
to earth-born feelings, — for ever. Jael is thus seen as the repre- 
sentative of goodness of a genuine kind, which does not suffer itself 
to be prostituted by being made a cover to vice. Here is some- 
thing on which the divine approbation cannot but rest : but, 



VI.] THE SCRIFTURE9 ASSERTED. 3 19 

without it, how vindicate the transaction ? Persons even of the 
best disposed minds, while they look at nothing beyond the letter, 
cannot reconcile such a deed with the universal command pro- 
hibitory of murder, but by affirming, that he who gave the precept, 
retains the right, when he sees fit, to remit its obligation ; that the 
occasions for its suspension were communicated to such characters 
as Jael by a divine impulse ; and that the slaughter which ensued 
then became, instead of murder, a judicial infliction. But what a 
door would be opened by this casuistry to the most horrid enor- 
mities ! and not a few have actually been perpetrated under its 
sanction. If a judicial infliction were all that was intended, how 
much more impressively would this be exhibited by an immediate 
visitation, as in the cases of Ananias and Sapphira !* Indeed, 
the sentiment leads directly to the conclusion, that there is no 
such thing as immutable right or wrong ; that He who gave the 
moral code could reverse it also. But what a being does this make 
of the Author of creation ! Does it not paint him like those 
tyrants that blot the pages of history, who made their mere will 
the law, and whose will was guided by caprice alone ? It is true, 
that the will of God is, and ever must be, the standard of morals, 
and that obedience to it must always remain the test of virtue : but 
to imagine that his will can be mutable ; that it is not unalterably 
determined to goodness in the abstract ; and that essential good- 
ness can ever be any thing else than love, or its duties any but 
such as love would dictate : — surely this is to display any but a 
just idea of the Divine Nature ! It is, in fact, to deny to God any 
unalterable attribute but that of Infinite Power : and the worship- 
ers of mere Power, it may fairly be affirmed, would worship Satan 
himself, had it been possible for him to have succeeded in the 
enterprise which is ascribed to him, and to have seized the throne 
of heaven. 

Consider, then, I beseech you, my Christian brethren, the con- 
sequences in which you involve yourselves, and the cause of God 
and of Truth, by denying a regular spiritual sense to the Scrip- 
tures of Truth. Consider how this persuasion degrades the Word 
of God, and disgraces its Divine Author. Believe it to be possible 
that inspiration really may be inspiration ; that the Word of God 
may be the Word of God indeed, and that the wisdom of God may 
* Acts v. 



S50 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP [LECT. 

be actually included in it. Look for it then, as you would look 
for God himself. As you do not expect to find him in the scenes 
of nature, but in the inmost sphere of mind ; so neither is it 
reasonable to expect to find his pure wisdom in the outward letter 
of his Word, but in a sphere within it. Look again, I would also 
intreat you, at the objections of the Infidels. Pretend not to meet 
them in their own valley, where they can deploy their nine hundred 
chariots of iron ; but let the array they make there convince you, 
as it did Barak*, of the necessity of taking that elevated station 
which is your proper sphere, and of rushing down upon them from 
thence. Suffer them not to persuade you that the Scriptures are 
not the Word of God ; but permit them to point out to you what 
their nature must be if they are. Thus will the weapons of the 
Infidel be wrested out of his hands, and made efficient to his dis- 
comfiture; as the sword of Goliath became an instrument of mighty 
efficacy when wielded by a David.f But unless you deal with 
them thus, they will eventually accomplish the object at which they 
aim. Either Christians must rise to higher views of the nature of 
the Scriptures, and of the laws of their composition, or, I presume 
to affirm, the day will come, when all veneration for them as the 
proper Word of God, all belief of their having been dictated by 
any thing at all worthy of the name of Inspiration, all sanse of 
their inherent sanctity, and all communication by means of them 
with God and heaven, will cease to exist through the greater 
portion of the Christian world. Avert, I beseech you, the catas- 
trophe, by preserving the Palladium in the centre of the Christian 
Temple. Cast not the Ark of the Testimony out of the Holy Place. 
Regard the Word as possessing an internal principle within it : 
and then, and then only, you may defy the fiercest attacks upon 
the outer bulwarks. 

IV. But it is time to turn to the Deists : and to them I would 
say, Imagine not, men and brethren, should even the half of Chris- 
tendom openly go over to your side, that you have obtained any 
victory over Christianity or over the Word of God. Platter not 
yourselves that your success were the triumph of truth over error : 
it were nothing, be assured, but a triumph of one species of error 
over another, — of simple fallacy over falsified truth. It were not a 
* Judges iv. 12, 13, 14. f 1 Sam. xvii. 51 ,• Ch. xxi. 9. 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 351 

triumph of the light of nature over the light of the Word, but over 
a view of the Word which extinguishes its light and that of nature 
together. It has become the general opinion of Christians, that the 
Divine Word is to be understood in its literal sense alone ; or 
rather, as, when looked at merely in the letter, it often cannot 
be understood at all, that it is to be simply believed ; you 
look at it with these preconceived impressions; and as you 
thus find in it much that you cannot believe, and are not 
led to look for its time meaning in a higher sense, you reject 
it. But what you thus reject is not so properly the Word 
Itself, as a mistaken idea of it, which you have taken from those 
whom you regard as its proper interpreters. A very different view 
of the Divine Book, and to which, as we have seen, none of your 
objections are in the slightest degree applicable, has now been laid 
before you. As was observed to me by a gentleman, once of 
your sentiments, who saw, as soon as this view was presented to 
him, that against the Scriptures, thus interpreted, nothing which 
he had read in the deistical writers would attach; — your Paines and 
Volneys would here have all their work to begin again. An oppor- 
tunity then is now afforded you, of trying the sincerity of that love 
of truth which you profess so loudly : for here, I hesitate not to 
say, is offered you the truth itself; that is, a just view of the Word 
of Truth itself; and this declares, by its proper organ, the mouth 
of the Word Incarnate, "Every one that is of the truth heareth my 
words." 

But, alas ! I know too well how many causes, very different from 
the proper love of truth, tend to swell the ranks of Infidelity, to 
expect that any great proportion of you will listen to this appeal. 
Though perfectly satisfied that the view here offered is the truth, 
I by no means expect that it will satisfy those confirmed deniers of 
the inspiration of the Scriptures, who, instead of being desirous to 
know the will of God in order that they may do it, would be 
better pleased to obtain demonstration that there were no God at 
all whose will they need consider ; — that they are free from all ob- 
ligation of regarding any will but their own. Of those who, from 
this ground, " hear not Moses and the prophets," Divine Truth has 
declared, that " neither would they be persuaded, though one rose 
from the dead."* But to such of you as are of a different charac- 
* Luke xvi. 31. 



352 PLENARY INSPIRATION OF [LECT. 

ter who Lave fallen into states of doubt, in consequence of having 
been led to fix your attention upon those parts of the Scriptures, 
which, when regarded as to the literal statements alone, appear re- 
pugnant to reason, but who feel uneasiness in consequence, and 
would gladly see a way by which your difficulties might be removed; 
the view which has been developed may certainly afford all the 
satisfaction which you can desire. 

Since then there are two so very different origins of scepticism, 
I would earnestly and affectionately exhort every one who is in 
such a state, or who feels a tendency towards it, dispassionately to 
examine his own heart, in order to ascertain the first source of his 
impressions. You will all, perhaps, eagerly reply, that you follow 
in your sentiments nothing but the unbiassed suggestions of rea- 
son. I would ask in return, Are you sure of that ? Every philoso- 
pher knows what an extraordinary influence is exercised by the 
inclinations of the will over the conclusions of the understanding : 
it has even become a proverbial remark, that whatsoever a man 
ardently wishes to find true, he seldom fails in the end to persuade 
himself is true. Let then every one, before he trusts too implicitly 
to what he deems the dictates of his reason, faithfully ascertain, 
whether he inwardly wishes to find that which is offered him as a 
Divine Revelation true or false : and whether, in the event of 
sufficient evidence of its truth being presented, he is prepared, 
cheerfully and without reserve, to follow the course of duty which 
it enjoins. It he can answer this inquiry in the affirmative, then 
can we allow him to be an impartial inquirer after truth, all whose 
scruples we are convinced we could satisfy. Another test by which 
any one may judge of his own impartiality, is this: Does he find as 
much satisfaction, when looking over the Scriptures, in those pas- 
sages which present truly exalted ideas of God, and the most pure 
and sublime precepts of moral duty, as when he discovers statements 
which, to his notions, appear extravagant and irreconcilable to rea- 
son ? Does he look for and dwell upon these with satisfaction and 
triumph? and does he feel not disposed to look attentively at the 
others, but to slur them over, experiencing something like mortifi- 
cation at finding any thing indisputably excellent in a book which 
he would fain regard as worthy of nothing but contempt ? If so, it 
is plain to which of the two classes of sceptics before described he 
belongs, and he will do well to relinquish his boast of impartiality, 



VI.] THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED. 353 

and to allow that his rejection of the Scriptures is not the result of 
reason but of prejudice ; — of prejudice, the offspring of pride and 
self-conceit, if not of more palpably disgraceful vices. 

He, on the other hand, who is really disposed to look impartially 
at the matter, must surely feel his heart glow with inward devo- 
tion, when he reads such a description of the Divine Majesty, as we 
quoted, in our first Lecture, from Isaiah; in which, as in many 
other instances, the great attributes of Infinity and Eternity are 
exhibited with a sublimity and force to which Philosophy never pre- 
tended. And again : while the Scriptures so excel in describing 
the Divine Majesty and attributes, when did Philosophy deliver so 
striking and affecting a delineation of the whole duty of man, both 
to God and his fellow- creatures, as in the declarations of Moses, 
quoted by Jesus Christ as the proper answer to an enquirer, who 
asked, " What was the great commandment of the law." " The 
first of all the commandments," said he, " is,[ Hear, O Israel, the 
Lord thy God is one Lord : and thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, 
and with all thy strength : And the second is like unto it : Thou 
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself :" to which he adds this em- 
phatic declaration: "On these two commandments hang all the 
law and the prophets."* Here we are plainly instructed, that to 
inculcate love to God and man is the design of the whole Word of 
God : if then there are any parts of that Word in which this design 
does not appear upon the surface, the just inference is, that there 
is something beneath the surface which does not shew itself on a 
superficial inspection. So, again, in that other beautiful and 
impressive summary of all moral duty: " Whatsoever ye would that 
men should do unto you, even so do ye unto them ;" to which also 
the Divine Speaker adds, " for this is the law and the prophets."f 
Now, surely, none who is animated by a sincere affection for truth, 
and who actually loves the charity which he is so ready to eulo- 
gize, can help feeling deeply affected by such touching appeals to 
the heart and conscience as these ; and he who thus feels their 
power cannot be disposed eagerly to reject, as a fable or a forgery, 
the whole book in which they are found, and of which they are a 
part ; especially, too, when these declarations affirm so positively 
that all the rest of the book is of the same character as themselves. 
* Matt. xsii. 36 to 40. f Ch. vii. 12. 



354 PLENARY INSPIRATION OP THE SCRIPTURES. 

Let him then listen candidly to a system which points out how the 
rest of the book is of the same character as these specimens; which 
evinces, that there is a spiritual sense contained throughout the 
whole, which shines plainly through the very letter in such pas- 
sages as we have just quoted, but which equally exists every where 
else, though veiled from immediate view by a clothing of images 
taken from natural objects. In short, every one who is not 
rendered inimical to the Word of God by passion, prejudice, or 
pride, may find abundant reason to conclude in its favour upon a 
candid examination of the general scope of its letter : he may there 
find, for himself* plain indications that it is inwardly replenished 
with real divine wisdom: and when he sees this proved by the 
views of its nature which have now been developed, he surely will 
take it to his bosom, and thank its Author for the invaluable boon. 

I conclude with expressing a devout hope, that the Author of 
the Word of God will accompany this attempt at its vindication 
with his blessing. May the number of the sincere and devotional 
lovers of Truth, of all classes and of all parties, be rapidly in* 
creased ! May they learn to venerate the Word of God as the 
Word of God, and draw ftom its exhaustless bosom the streams of 
genuine truth ! Believing, also, the view of the nature of the 
Scriptures of which a faint sketch has now been given, to be the 
truth ; and feeling the powerful, the unalterable conviction of their 
divinity which the reception of it imparts ; »I add, May mankind in 
general be speedily brought to do justice to a system, which sets 
the feet of the disciple of Eevelation on a rock of adamant, and 
invests him with a panoply of strength, aimed against which, the 
keenest shafts of Infidelity will ever fall blunted and harmless 1 



END OP THE LECTURES. 






APPENDIX. 



No. I. (Page 50.) 

PROOFS OP THE SYMBOLIC CHARACTER OP THE WRITINGS OP THE OLD 
TESTAMENT, AFFORDED BY THE REVELATION OF JOHN. 

This book of the Apocalypse, though itself one of the most mysterious of the 
books of Scripture, yet affords a key to the interpretation of all the rest ; — at 
least of all those of the Old Testament ; for it is impossible to read this book 
with any attention, without discovering, that it is written throughout upon the 
supposition, that every thing related in Scripture respecting the Jewish church 
and people, has a symbolic meaning, and is not merely a record of comparatively 
unimportant matters of fact. If then this book is written by divine inspira- 
tion, (and, notwithstanding the objections which some, judging by totally er- 
roneous criteria, have raised against it, there is no book of Scripture in which 
the Spirit of inspiration discovers itself by more infallible marks,) we have here 
the most explicit testimony of that Spirit itself to the spiritual nature of the 
more ancient Scriptures. We will notice a little more particularly than in the 
text above, some statements which prove these three points ; the typical cha- 
racter of the persons mentioned in the Old Testament ; — of the rituals of the 
Mosaic law ; — of the places mentioned in the Old Testament. 

I. We need go no farther than the second chapter of this extraordinary 
book, to find proof that the events related in the historical nart of the Old 
Testament, contain an ulterior reference to subjects of a spiritual nature, im- 
portant to the Church and her members in every age; and that the persons 
whose actions are recorded in the Holy Word, are all typical characters. For 
in the divine address to the Church of Pergamos, we have these words : M But 
I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the 
doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumbling block before the 
children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.'* 
A little further, we find Jesus Christ saying to the Church of Thyatira, " Not- 
withstanding, I have a few things against thee, because thou sufFerest that 
woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach, and to seduce my 
servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. And I 
gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. Behold, I 
cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribu- 
lation, except they repent of their deeds : and I will kill her children with 
death : And all the churches shall know, that I am he which searcheth the 
reins and hearts."f In these passages we have two of the characters of the 
Old Testament brought forward, and described as still occupied in their old 
work of perverting the church. 

* Kev. ii. 14. t Ver. 20 to 23. 

a 



ii APPENDIX. [NO. 

The book of Numbers* relates the history of the prophet Balaam, who was 
employed by Balak king of Moab, to obstruct the march of the Israelites by his 
incantations ; and who actually did prepare a snaref into which they fell, and 
were visited in consequence by a destroying plague. The narrative afterwards 
mentions his death by the sword of the Israelites}: : and there, if nothing but a 
record of natural events were intended, we should expect the history of Balaam 
and his arts to end. No mention is made of any " doctrine " taught by him ; 
much less of any sect of followers attached to such doctrine. But in the pas- 
sage just quoted we find mention occur, not indeed of Balaam himself, as being 
still alive, but of a body of his disciples, existing fifteen hundred years after hi3 
death, during the whole of which interval he does not appear to have had any 
disciples at all ! 

But the other instance we have cited is more remarkable still. Jezebel was 
the wife of Ahab, one of the most wicked kings that ever reigned in Israel ; but 
who, wicked as he was, was not so abandoned as his wife : for the sacred Re- 
cord says, " There was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work 
wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.§ This 
wicked queen perished miserably|| about 2600 years ago, and above eight hun- 
dred years before the book of the Revelation of John was written : yet she is 
here spoken of as being still living, — still practising what she delighted in 
when alive, which was, to pervert the church, and to seduce or destroy the 
Lord's faithful servants ; — and she is represented as being still to undergo the 
punishment due to her crimes, though that had been so dreadfully inflicted 
upon her, personally, by the instrumentality of Jehu. Can any thing then be 
more plain, than that this mention of Balaam and of Jezebel in the Apocalypse, 
is designed to instruct us, that they were both representative characters, and 
thus that the narratives which record their actions are replete with a hidden 
meaning, beyond that which appears on the surface? To admit, as all must 
admit, that they were used as types by John, but to deny that they have a 
typical signification in the Old Testament, is to maintain a gross inconsistency. 
John gives no sort of intimation that he is assigning them a new relation, but 
evidently considers their typical character as a thing fully established, and not 
to be questioned. 

We will give two other examples. The Lamb that was seen in the midst of 
the throne in heaven^, is called " the Lion of the tribe of Jtida."** This is an 
allusion to the prophetic benediction of his sons by Jacob; in which we read, 
" Judah is a lion's whelp : from the prey, my son, art thou gone up ; he stooped 
down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him upff:" 
and thus we are taught, that the ultimate reference of this enigmatical saying 
is not to Judah, or to his tribe, but to the Lord Jesus Christ. 

In the seventh chapter, when four angels were seen holding the four winds, 
and another angel cried to them, saying, < : Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, 
nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads ;" 
and when, in consequence, exactly twelve thousand were sealed of each of the 
twelve tribes of the children of Israel:— every one sees that the children of Israel 
and their tribes cannot be personally meant: and if they have a symbolic 
meaning here, they must have a symbolic meaning elsewhere; which is thus 
clearly taught. 

* Chs. xxii. to xxv. t Ch. xxxi. 16. t Ch. xxxi. 8. 5 1 KtaP **'■ 25. 

B 2 Kings ix. 30 to end. <$ Ch. v. G. ** Yer. 5. tt Gen. xlix. 9. 



I.] APPENDIX. ill 

II. In regard to the notices of the Mosaic rituals. In the eighth chapter we 
read of " the golden altar which was before the throne," and of an angel having 
" a golden censer,' 1 and to whom was given " much incense, that he should offer 
it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar." * This is an allusion to 
the golden altar which stood before the veil in the tabernacle and temple, and 
upon which the incense was offered. f In the eleventh chapter an angel said to 
John, " Rise, and measure the temple cf God, and the altar, and them that wor=- 
ship therein: but the court, which is without the temple, leave out, and mea- 
sure it not J," &c. This alludes to the temple, its altar and courts as they 
existed under the Jewish economy. So, also, when the Revelator says, "I 
looked, and, behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was 
opened § ;" — " and the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God |j ;" 
— " and I heard a great voice out of the temple, saying to the seven angels^" ;" 
— " and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, 
saying, It is done** ;" — " And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and 
there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament"^ It is plain that these 
things are all here mentioned as symbols of spiritual things ; and what they 
denote is also in some measure hinted ; and thus we are taught that they have 
a symbolic meaning when mentioned in the Old Testament. 

Beside those which are properly rituals, many of the other representatives 
of the Old Testament are also alluded to, and their representative character 
thus clearly established ; as the tree of Ufe\% ; the manna§§ ; the key of 
David |[[|; and the plagues of Egypt.%^ 

III. Respecting the places mentioned in the Israelitish history, there are 
several allusions. The river Euphrates is mentioned thus: John "heard a 
voice from the four horns of the golden altar, which is before God, saying to 
the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound 
in the great river Euphrates*** :" " The sixth angel poured out his vial upon the 
great river Euphrates, and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the 
kings of the east might be prepared."ttt ^- s Commentators are disposed, 
though with very questionable success, to interpret these passages literally, we 
will not build any thing upon them, but leave them to the consideration of the 
intelligent, while we mention other passages for which none can claim a 
literal interpretation. 

Of the two witnesses it is said, after they are killed by the beast that 
ascendeth out of the bottomless pit, that " their dead bodies shall lie in the 
street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt; where 
also our Lord was crucified."J^± Here it is difficult to suppose that these 
figurative witnesses, when slain by a figurative beast, can lie in any other than 
a figurative city : and what can that be, but some state of opposition to, or of 
the perversion of, divine things? The nature of this state then must be de- 
noted by the names which are applied to it ; and of course Sodom and Egypt 
must have a similar meaning when mentioned elsewhere in the Holy Word ; 

* Ver. 3. t Exod. xl. 26, 27. % Ver. 1, 2. § Ch. xv. 5. 

|| Ver. 8: See also Exod. xl. 34, and 1 Kings viii. 10. V Rev. xvi. 1. 

** Yer. 17. ft Ver. 19. %% Ch. iii. 7 ; xxii. 2, 14. §§ Ch. iL 17. 

|i|| Ch. iii. 7: (compare Isa. xxii. 22.) 
f^T The turning of the waters into blood, ch. xvi. 3, 4 : The plague of frogs (allusion to,) 
ver. 13: The plague of boils, ver. 2 : The plague of hail mingled with fire, ch. viii. 7 : Tho 
plague of locusts, ch. ix. 3 : The plague of darkness, civ. viii. 12. 

*** Ch. ix. 13, 14. ftt Ch. xvi. 12. %tX Ch. xi. 8. 



iv APPENDIX. [NO. 

otherwise it would be quite unmeaning to call such a state by those name3 
here. 

Of Mount Sion, we have this remarkable notice : " I looked, and lo, a Lamb 
stood on the Mount Sion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand* 
having his Father's name written in their foreheads."* Mount Sion, or Zion, 
is frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, and is generally allowed to 
have a spiritual signification; which this passage demonstrates; and also 
shews that its spiritual reference must be to something of the most holy and 
exalted nature. The hundred and forty-four thousand here again mentioned, 
are, no doubt, the same as were before said to have been sealed out of all the 
tribes of Israel : and what is here said of them further evinces, that we are 
not to understand by them Israelites according to the flesh, but " Israelites 
indeed, in whom is no guilef;" or them who receive in the most ample 
manner the graces of salvation, and yield the most unhesitating obedience to 
all the divine will : for it is presently added, " These are they which were not 
defiled with women, for they are virgins " [but not necessarily in the Roman 
Catholic sense] : " these are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he 
goeth : these were redeemed from among men, being the first fruits to God 
and to the Lamb : and in their mouth was found no guile j for they are with* 
out fault before the throne of God."J 

The Jews were carried captive to Babylon ; and the judgments which 
afterwards befel that proud city, are repeatedly foretold in Isaiah and Jeremiah, 
whose predictions are considered to have received a complete fulfilment in the 
total desolation which that metropolis has experienced. But two whole 
chapters of the Revelation, and parts of three others, are occupied with ac- 
counts of Babylon and her fall, as if she were still standing, and her fall still to 
come, at the late period to which those parts of the book evidently refer : and 
what is equally remarkable, much of the language used on the ocsasion by 
John, is the same, or nearly so, as was before used, in reference to Babylon, by 
Isaiah and Jeremiah. An angel says in the fourteenth chapter of Revelation, 
" Babylon is fallen, is fallen^ ;" in the eighteenth chapter, another angel crie3 
mightily saying, " Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen\\ :" in the twenty-first 
of Isaiah a watchman says, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen^ :" and Jeremiah says 
"Babylon is suddenly fallen, and destroyed."** The angel in the Revelation* 
adds, — " and is become the habitation of demons, and the hold of every foul 
spirit, and the cage of everv unclean and hateful birdff :" Isaiah says, " Wild 
beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of doleful 
creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there."JJ So it 
is said in Jeremiah, " The wild beasts of the desert with the wild beasts of the 
islands shall dwell there, and the owls shall dwell therein."§§ The Apocalyptic 
angel proceeds to say, " For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her 
fornication|||| ;" and when Babylon was seen under the figure of a woman, she 
had " a golden cup in her hand, full of abominations and fllthiness of her forni- 
cation^:" Jeremiah says, "Babylon has been a golden cup in the Lord's 
hand, that hath made all the earth drunken; the nations have drunken of her 
wine; therefore the nations are mad."*** Another voice was heard by John, 
saying, " Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins> 

• Ch. xiv. 1. f John i. 47. t Kev. xiv. 4, 5. § Ver. 8. || Ver. 2. 

T Ver. 9. ** Ch. 11 8. ft Ch. xviii. 2. » Ch. xiii. 21. 

5§ Ch. 1. 39. till Itev. xviii. 3. TV Ch. xvii. 4. *** Ch. li. 7. 



I.] APPENDIX. V 

and that ye receive not of her plagues : for her sins have reached unto heaven, 
and God hath remembered her iniquities*:" Jeremiah says, "Flee out of the 
midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul : be not cut off in her 
iniquity; for this is the time of the Lord's vengeance ; he will render her a 
recompense! :" and again, "Forsake her, and let us go every one into his own 
country : for her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the 
skies % :" and again : " My people, go ye out of the midst of her, and deliver 
ye every man his soul from the fierce anger of the Lord."§ The voice heard 
by John proceeds to say, "Reward her, even as she hath rewarded you, and 
double unto her double according to her works|| :" Jeremiah says, " Recom- 
pense her according to her works ; according to all that she hath done, do 
unto her."^[ The voice in the Revelation describes her pride and its con- 
sequences thus: " She saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and 
shall see no sorrow : therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and 
mourning, and famine** :" which is thus paralleled in Isaiah : " Thou saidst, 
I shall be a lady for ever; — I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the 
loss of children : but these two things shall come unto thee in a moment, in 
one day; the loss of children and widowhood."ff Much then follows in the 
Revelation, which closely resembles what is said of the destruction of Tyre in 
the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh chapters of Ezekiel ; after which it is 
written, "And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great mill-stone, and 
cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon 
be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all$J ;" What was thus done 
by an angel in the sight of John, resembles what was done by a messenger 
sent by Jeremiah to ancient Babylon : he directed him, when he arrived there, 
to read the prophecy against it ; and he concludes his injunctions in these 
words : " And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, 
that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of Euphrates : and 
thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that 
I will bring upon her."§§ 

Now it is evident that the Babylon of the Apocalypse is altogether a 
spiritual Babylon; as also, that the sublime images by which her judgment 
is described are all a series of pure symbols, having none but a spiritual signi- 
fication, But the very same things are said respecting the judgment on 
Babylon pronounced by the old prophets : is it not then evident, that the 
Babylon of the Old Testament, though a real city, was nevertheless a typical 
one ? as likewise, that the language in which the old prophets announced its 
destruction, was equally symbolic with the same language when used by the 
Apocalyptic divine, and that although, with them, it had a literal sense, it 
had a spiritual sense also? Are we not thus plainly taught by the Revelator, 
what is the nature of the prophetic style of the Old Testament? When he 
uses the same language, and treats of the same places, as they do ; and this 
long after the places had ceased to exist; does he not clearly inform us, that 
the places treated of by them had a typical character, and that the language 
in which they spoke of them had a meaning beyond that which appears on the 
surface ? 

There remains but one other place to notice, which is Jerusalem. It is 

* Kev. xviii. 4, 5. f Ch. li. 6. % Ver. 9. § Ver. 45. 

|| Rev. xviii. 6. f Ch. L 29. ** Ch. xviii. 7, 8. 

tt Ch. xlvii. 7, 8, 9. XX Ch. xviii. 21. §§ Jer. li. 63, 64. 



Vi APPENDIX. [NO. 

allowed by commentators in general, that Jerusalem is a type of the church ; 
which principle is frequently recognised by the translators of the English 
Bible, in the summaries of the contents prefixed to the chapters. There are. 
however, various passages in the Old Testament, in which, under the name of 
Jerusalem, the church is treated of as being in a state of desolation or corrup- 
tion : and many in which, on account of their plain applicability to the cir- 
cumstances of the actual or carnal Jerusalem, there might be room to doubt 
whether any thing further is intended, were it not for other passages which do 
not admit of such limitation. But in the Apocalypse, Jerusalem is nevev 
mentioned in a way that will admit of an application to the carnal Jerusalem 
at all. In the only passage where an allusion is made to the carnal Jerusalem, 
as the place " where our Lord was crucified*," it is called, not Jerusalem, but 
" Sodom and Egypt" Whenever " Jerusalem " is mentioned, it is always in a 
manner that fully establishes its meaning to be, the true church of the Lord ; 
thus completely establishing, at the same time, the symbolic or typical 
character of the city Jerusalem under the Jewish dispensation. To guard 
against its being referred to the mere city Jerusalem, it likewise is always called 
either the " new Jerusalem^," or the " holy Jerusalem% ;" and it is spoken of as 
"coming down from God out of heaven § ;" just as Paul, to preserve the same 
distinction, calls the carnal Jerusalem, or Jerusalem taken as a type of 
the Jewish church, the " Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with 
her children|| ;" and he terms the true church " the Jerusalem above, 1 " or the 
heavenly Jerusalem: thus he says, continuing the sentence of which a part is 
just quoted, " But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us 
alllf :" and again, " Ye are come unto Mount Sion, and to the city of the 
living God, the heavenly Jerusalem:'"** So when the Revelator speaks of a 
new Jerusalem, such a one as cometh down from God out of heaven, — while he 
clearly predicts by the sublime symbol a future glorious state of the church 
among men, (" Behold, the tabernacle of God is icith men\\ ;") he distinctly 
points to the typical character of the ancient Jerusalem, as designating the 
church in general : and, to reverse the proposition, the acknowledged typical 
character of the ancient Jerusalem, points out what is meant by the new 
Jerusalem here. To adopt the words of one of the most learned and esteemed 
commentators, Dr. Hammond: "The true meaning of the New Jerusalem 
mentioned here (ch. xxi. ver. 2,) and again with the addition of holy, and the 
glory of God upon it (ver. 11,) will be a key to the interpreting of this 
chapter." [He might have added, and of all the passages in the Old Testa- 
ment where Jerusalem i3 mentioned. He proceeds to say] " That it signifies 
not the state of glorified saints in heaven, appears by its descending from 
heaven in both places, (and that according to the use of the phrase, ch. x. 1. 
and xviii. 1, as an expression of some eminent benefit and blessing in the 
church ; ) and so it must needs be here on earth : and being here set down, 
with the glory of God upon it, it will signify the pure Christian church, join- 
ing Christian practice with the profession thereof; and that in a flourishing 
condition, expressed by the new heaven and new earth. In this sense we have 
the supernal Jerusalem, (Gal. iv. 26,) the New Jerusalem, (Rev. iii. 12,) where, 
to the constant professor is promised, that God will write upon him the 
name of God, and the name of the city of God, the New Jerusalem, which 

* Ch. xi. 8. t Ch. iii. 12, xxL 2. + Ver. 10. § Cb. iii. 12, xxi. 2. 

U Gal. iv. 25. If Ver. 2G. ** Hcb. xii. 22. tt Rev. xxi. 3. 



1.] APPENDIX. Til 

there signifies the pure, catholic, Christian Church" Filled with this view cf 
the subject, which is so evidently the true one, the pious Watts, in a hymn 
entitled "A Vision of the Kingdom of Christ among men*," has these 
rapturous stanzas : 

" From the third heaven, where God resides, 
That holy, happy place, 
Ehc >~ew Jerusalem comes down, 
Adorn'd with shining grace.— 

How Ions', dear Saviour, how long 

Shall this bright hour delay ? 
Fly swifter round, ye wheels of time, 

And bring the welcome d 

Altogether, then, I trust, it is perfectly evident, that had the Revelation cf 
John been written by that Apostle as an express commentary upon the Old 
Testament, it could not have taught us more clearly than it does, that every 
thing relating to the history of the Jews, to their worship, and to the countries 
and cities inhabited by them and by the nations with whom they had inter- 
course, as' recorded by the pen of inspiration, had a symbolic and spiritual 
meaning. Had the Revelation been an express commentary, we might indeed 
have been informed more explicitly what that meaning is: but the general prin- 
ciple, that there is such a meaning, — that all the inspired writings do positively 
contain a sense beyond that which is extant on the surface, — could not have 
been more decisively established. If we deny this principle, we deny to the 
whole of the Revelation of John any meaning at all : we convert his sublime 
symbols into a senseless jargon : and, if we still admit his book to have been 
written by inspiration, we charge with egregious trifling the unerring Spirit of 
God. 



No. II. (Page 134.) 

AS ATTEMPT TO DISCRIMINATE BETWEEN THE BOOKS OF PLENARY TXSPIBA- 
TIOX, CONTAINED IX THE BIBLE, AND THOSE WRITTEN BY THE INSPIRA- 
TION GENERALLY ASSIGNED TO THE WHOLE. 

We are advocating in this Work " the Plenary Inspiration of the Scriptures ;" 
and we are endeavouring to shew, that no writing can be produced by Plenary 
Inspiration without including stores of spiritual and divine wisdom within the 
outward covering of the literal expression. It must however be admitted, that 
there are some books contained in the collection called the Bible, which, though 
they are to be received as the productions of men endowed with an extraor- 
dinary share of divine illumination, do not contain the spiritual sense here 
claimed for the absolute Word of God, and thus cannot be the results of that 
immediate and Plenary Inspiration which is essential to such writings as are 
the Word of God indeed. The particular examination of this subject could not 
conveniently be introduced into the Lectures themselves ; wherefore we will 
make some remarks upon it here. It is necessary that the distinction should 
net be passed without notice; since, without a knowledge of its existence, they 
* Book L Hymn 21. jg 



viii APPENDIX. [no. 

who should endeavour to interpret the Scriptures by the Rule drawn from the 
Analogy between natural things and spiritual, or to try the validity of the 
Rule itself, might be disappointed in the results, in consequence of applying it 
to those parts of the Bible which are not composed according to it, or are not 
written by the plenary and immediate, but by the more lax and mediate species 
of inspiration. 

We have stated in our early Lectures the sentiments which are now generally 
held by the learned on the nature of the inspiration of the Word of God ; and 
we objected to them as not going far enough, and as not giving a proper idea 
of compositions that are absolutely divine. They all proceed upon the suppo- 
sition, that inspiration, be it what it may, is a personal and permanent gift to 
the man by whom an inspired book is written ; that the writers of the Scrip- 
tures were divinely illuminated men, who, with few exceptions, wrote in theii 
own words the perceptions of their own minds, which were the constant seats oi 
the illumination of the Holy Spirit : (though some will not admit so much as 
this.) If this definition were intended for a certain portion, only, of the books 
commonly called the Holy Scriptures, we should be constrained to admit it to 
be correct ; but we deem it grossly defective when applied to the greater part 
of them. The inspiration by which these were written, was, we have endea- 
voured to shew, such as took an entire possession, for the time, of the faculties 
of the writers ; and after they had written what was intended, it again would 
leave them, and then they would return into their ordinary state ; in which 
they would not necessarily understand the meaning of the things, which, in 
their state of ecstacy, they had spoken or written. The other books admitted 
into our Canon of Scripture, appear, for the most part, to have been composed 
by persons, who were endowed with such a degree of illumination, by the Spirit 
of God, as to discern, in the former class of writings, the doctrine suited to the 
dispensation of Divine Truth under which they lived, and which they were 
raised up to assist in establishing, — such of them as lived under the Jewish 
dispensation, the doctrine of the Jewish church, and such of them as were raised 
up to establish Christianity, the doctrine of the Christian Church : and the 
writings of the latter are justly taken, by the Christian Church, as authorita- 
tive declarations of her authentic doctrines. Beside the doctrinal writings of 
this class, there are also some historical ones. All writings of this class are to 
be interpreted by their literal sense alone ; allowing, however, for their occa- 
sional use of figurative expressions, and of words and phrases taken from those 
Scriptures which have a spiritual sense, and which, of course, must bear the 
same meaning when excerpted as in their original repository. In short, these 
writings are to be explained by the same sort of criticism as would be exercised 
to ascertain the meaning of other ancient authors. 

I. The assertion, that there are writings of two so distinct classes contained 
in the sacred collection called the Bible, may at first appear arbitrary and un- 
supported by the reason of the case : and yet when it is more attentively con- 
sidered, I apprehend it will be discovered to be founded, not merely in reason, 
but in absolute necessity; for it will appear, that the designs of the Almighty 
Father in giving a dispensation of his will to man, could not otherwise have 
been made effectual. 

1. We have endeavoured to prove, in the third, and in the preceding part of 
this fourth Lecture, that no composition which is truly and absolutely the Word 
of God, could be produced, the literal sense of which should not be composed of 



fl.] APPENDIX. U 

natural images, and of appearances of things taken from the world of nature : 
and that such is actually the case with the books of Scripture which are written 
by the plenary inspiration, is shewn in the sequel of this, and in the following 
Lecture. From this peculiarity of construction, it inevitably follows, that the 
letter cannot every where present such ideas openly to the view, as are proper 
to form the doctrine of the church founded upon it : — as remarked in our second 
Lecture*, passages which even appear to be in opposition to each other not un- 
frequently occur, one of which delivers the genuine truth, and the other the 
truth covered with the veil of a mere appearance taken from human ideas. But 
the choice between them is not without its difficulties. It is evident, for the 
construction of coherent doctrine, that one of these classes of passages must be 
so explained as to be reconciled with the other: but man, in his untutored, 
natural state, is not qualified to decide with accuracy by which he ought to 
abide ; and when he studies the Word under the influence of an unpurified 
heart, he is but too apt to catch at the appearance to the exclusion of the 
reality ; he is ever disposed to kill the prophets, and to stone them that are sent 
unto Mm, and he is never so well pleased as when he can destroy, spiritually, 
the disciples of the Lord, or the pure truths of which the disciples are the de- 
positaries, under the persuasion that he is doing God service, and can allege as 
his authority the letter of God's Word, of the ambiguities of which he avails 
himself for the purpose. 

That the ambiguities of the letter of the Word are very numerous, — that it 
is a sword which tarns every way, — is a fact which has become proverbial. 
Every sect turns it in favour of its peculiar doctrines ; and into what a multi- 
plicity of sects the Christian Church has been divided, and what monstrous 
sentiments have by some of them been maintained, are things well known : yet 
the most extravagant of them all have professed to found their sentiments upon 
the Word of God, and have produced passages from its letter which might be 
construed in their favour. Of this fact, the writers of the Romish Communion 
have not failed to take advantage: the Word of God, on account of its admit- 
ting, as to its letter, of such a variety of interpretations, has, by them, been 
blasphemously denominated Liber Emresiarum, and they invite their opponents 
to take refuge from its uncertainties in the ever-consistent decisions of a self- 
constituted infallible church. If then men have thus parted the Lord's garments 
among them, and cast lots upon his vesture, (which circumstances are explained 
in our fifth Lecture,) notwithstanding it has been provided, as will presently 
be seen, that the books written in the language of Analogy should be accom- 
panied with others in which the leading doctrines of the former are explicitly 
developed ; to what extremes of perversion would they not have gone, had they 
been left, without such help, to draw their doctrines from the more mysterious 
Looks for themselves. 

It being then a demonstrable fact, that writings composed in the style which 
belongs to the absolute Word of God, cannot be understood by the simple and 
unenlightened, without the help of doctrine, as a lamp to direct their path, 
drawn thence by some person or persons endowed with special illumination for 
the purpose; there arises a necessity, that, ever since a written Revelation has 
been the medium of conveying the divine will to man, in every church pos- 
Bessed of such a Revelation, divinely illuminated persons should be raised up, 
qualified to deliver, either by oral instruction or by writing, such views of doc- 

* r. 65. 



X APPENDIX. [NO. 

trine, founded on that Revelation, as were adapted to the genius of the peop^ 
among whom they lived, and to the character of the dispensation of which they 
were the subjects: and there can be no reasonable doubt that the Author of 
Revelation would provide the aids necessary to render it effectual to its object. 
Under the Jewish dispensation, which, as well as the Jews themselves, was of 
a very external character, and in which very enlightened views of doctrine 
would have surpassed the comprehension of the people, little was wanted be- 
yond the literal enunciation of the Mosaic law, all the rituals of which were by 
them to be observed according to the letter ; yet even then teachers arose, who 
composed codes of morality, and delivered doctrinal precepts, adapted to im- 
press upon the minds of the Jews such of the truths involved in their law as 
were more especially calculated for their state and capacities : and, under the 
Christian dispensation, teachers, gifted with much higher illumination, were 
raised up, to discover more of the truths involved in the ancient Scriptures, and 
to declare that w Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one 
that believeth*;" and that " he that loveth another hath fulfilled thelawj;" 
because " the end of the commandment is charity, out of a pure heart, and of a 
good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.''^ Nor can it be reasonably doubted, 
that, if any further discoveries of the divine will should ever be necessary, they 
w T ould be made in a similar manner : nay, many believe that, if not further 
discoveries, re- discoveries of it have thus been made by Luther and Calvin, to 
whom some ascribe a spirit of understanding in the Scriptures not much inferior 
to that enjoyed by the Apostles: indeed, most sectaries entertain a similar 
opinion of the leaders whom they respectively follow ; and though they may 
be greatly mistaken as to the fact, their belief of it affords a recognition of the 
principle. So general, indeed, is the conviction, that without sound doctrine 
as a guide, the Word cannot be understood, that many have viewed the labours 
of that first of modern Institutions — the British and Foreign Bible Society, — 
in circulating the Scriptures without note or comment, as pregnant with mis- 
chief, and, tacitly adopting the Roman Catholic principle, have imagined, that 
thus to communicate the Word of God, is in effect to sow the seeds of heresy. 
There would have been less room for this apprehension, had the fact not been 
overlooked, that in the Bible, together with the books which are eminently 
the Scriptures, are included writings which deliver the leading doctrines of 
the former without any recondite meaning. Divine Wisdom knew that books 
composed in the purely divine style were liable to be misunderstood by the 
simple and unintelligent; wherefore it has provided that they should be ac- 
companied with writings intended to fix their general import, and to afford a 
clew to their safe and profitable interpretation^ 

2. It may now, we would hope, in some measure appear, that there was 
reason grounded in absolute necessity for the production of writings of this 
second class to accompany those of the first : but perhaps it may not im- 
mediately be seen that there was any necessity for the production of writings 

* Rom. x. 4. t Oh. xiii. 8. t 1 Tim. I 5. 

§ It must however be confessed, that many things in these writings also, are, as mnst 
unavoidably be the ease in all writings of great antiquity, " hard to be understood ;" they 
being full of allusions to circumstances and opinions of which nothing at all is now known, 
except by the learned, and but little by them, and containing many words used in a sense 
peculiar to the writers : hence it is but too true, that some of the greatest theological errors 
have been founded upon these very writings ; as was naturally to be expected when men. 
went to the study of ancient writers with minds pre-occupied by modem ideas. 



II.] APPENDIX. 



XI 



of any other kind than these. The doctrinal purport of these being more easily 
intelligible, they seem to have acquired, by degrees, a superior degree of estima- 
tion : at least it is certain, that it is from these that ministers most frequently 
take the subject of their discourses in the pulpit; and probably many would 
wish that the whole Bible consisted of such compositions, and are somewhat 
scandalized that it does not. But to this it may be sufficient to answer, that 
had not the Scriptures of plenary inspiration first been given, the others 
would never have been composed. They where all written by men to whom 
the compositions which are the Word of God, absolutely, were previously 
fomiliar ; and the kind of inspiration by which they were produced, consisted 
in endowing the writers with the faculty of discerning the doctrines contained 
in that Word; to which, therefore, as higher authority, they continually refer. 
Indeed, it is a fact, on which something is said in the fifth Lecture, that 
without the existence of the Scriptures of plenary inspiration in the world, no 
illumination in the divine things could, in the present state of mankind, be 
afforded. Accordingly, after the resurrection of the Lord, it is said respecting 
his disciples, " Then opened he their understandings that they should under- 
stand the Scriptures* :" And in giving the promise of the Holy Ghost, the 
Lord says, "These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with 
j-ou: but the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will 
send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to 
your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto youf:'' that is, he should recall 
all the Lord's words, and teach them to understand them. One of the chief 
effects, then, of the communication of the Holy Spirit, was to be, to enable the 
disciples to understand the Lord's words, together with the Scriptures, given 
by plenary inspiration, which are equally his words though communicated in 
a different manner, — not to write new Scriptures themselves : and such of them 
as did write new books of Scripture, must have done it by a special additional 
inspiration, distinct from that which was common to them all, and which 
constantly abode with them. Accordingly, they began their preaching with 
explaining the ancient Scriptures^; and this seems to have continued to be 
their usual practice : and all their discourses and writings are filled with the 

* Luke xxiv. 45. It is to be observed, that, in the Bible, no writings are ever called, 
simply, "the Scriptures," but those which are written by the Plenary Inspiration: to 
them the term is applied by way of eminence, and as an ellipsis for the divine or inspired 
Writings. It will hardly be maintained, that when Peter, (2 Ep. iii. 16,) in contradistinc- 
tion to the writings of Paul, mentions "the other Scriptures," (ras Aonras ypacpas), 
he means to admit that the Epistles of that Apostle are writings of the same kind. It is 
to be remembered, that the term " Scriptures " simply means Writings, and that the Greek 
name for them is the common name for writings: when, therefore, the Apostle Peter, 
after mentioning the Epistles of Paul, speaks, of " the other writings," the fair inference is, 
that he means to advert to the plenarily inspired Scriptures as writings of another kind,— 
of that kind which are usually called the Writings by way of eminence. Believing this to 
be the Apostle's meaning, I do not think the interpretation is to be accepted which under- 
stands by "the other writings," the other writings of Paul, besides those which treat of the 
specific subject here under discussion: though Schleusner seems to adopt this meaning, 
which he gives as that " plerorumque interpretum." If this is the true meaning, there is 
not left a shadow of pretence for the notion, that Peter puts his brother Apostle's writings 
on the same footing with those which are eminently the Scriptures. Schleusner also 
shews, that the word here translated " other," is as frequently used in the New Testament 
in reference to other things of other kinds as to other things of the same kind, Peter's 
accurate discrimination on the subject of inspiration is noticed below, p. xvii, 
f John xiv. 25, 26. $ Acts. ii. 16, &c. 



xii APPENDIX. [NO. 

light which this illumination, or this mediate and personal inspiration, brought 
to their minds. If it can be shewn that, in their ordinary discourse or writing, 
they ever spoke or wrote from immediate dictation, in those instances their 
ordinary and personal was exalted into extraordinary and plenary inspiration, 
and their language flowed according to the Laws of Analogy, and contained, 
what was not the case at other times, a spiritual and divine meaning beyond 
the outward expression. 

If then there are, in the collection called the Bible, writings or books of 
these two very different classes, it becomes a matter of great importance to 
discriminate between them. This, therefore, we will attempt; first, in regard 
to the books of the Old Testament ; and then of the New. 

II. The existence of writings in the Old Testament, written under two 
species of inspiration, is expressly affirmed by the Jews themselves : they, 
indeed, have placed in the second class some which belong to the first; but 
the error is easily rectified by the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ, who 
quotes no books, and acknowledges none as the ScripUtres, but those which are 
written by the Plenary Inspiration, or those in which, in the language of the 
Apostle Peter, " the Holy Ghost spake by the mouth of men*" or wrote by 
their hands. 

1. The Jews divided their sav.red books into the Law, the Prophets, and the 
Ketubim or Hagiographa, (Writings, or Holy Writings.) (1.) The Law includes 
the five books of Moses, so called from the preceptive character of great part 
of their contents r though Moses is to be considered as a prophet, and the 
greatest of prophet.3 ; as indeed he is expressly called, f (2.) The division 
denominated by them the Prophets, contained all the books which we call the 
historical ones, written before the Babylonian captivity, viz. those of Joshua, 
Judges, Samuel, and Kings ; with all those, one only excepted, which we 
commonly call the prophets. The former of these they called the Prior or 
Anterior Prophets, and the other the Later or Posterior; and they so named 
them, not, as HorneJ and others have affirmed, "with regard to the time when 
they respectively flourished ;" for it is certain that the writings of some of the 
later prophets were composed before those of some of the prior', but doubtless 
for another reason assigned by Leusden: " Quia Anteriores, &c. Because the 
anterior prophets relate affairs transacted before, or anterior to, the time of 
narrating them ; whereas the posterior prophets treat of things to happen 
after, posterior to, or later than, the delivery of the prophecy.§" (3.) The 
division styled Hagiographa contains, according to the modern Jews, the books 
of Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, 
Daniel, Ezra, Nebemiah, and Chronicles. But it appears certain, by the 
testimony of Josephus||, that Daniel, in his time, was reckoned, as he so 
clearly ought to be, among the Prophets ; and he seems to have been trans- 
ferred to the Hagiographa, because those books w r ere not regularly read in the 
Synagogue, and the Rabbins, after the time limited by his prophecy of the 
seventy weeks for the coming of the Messiah had undeniably expired, became 
unwilling to read before the people so plain a proof of their error in rejecting 

* Acts i. 16. t Deut. xviii. 15, xxxlv. 10. 

% Introduction, vol. ii. p. 149, vol. iv. p. 27. (Ed. 1822 ) 
§ Phil. Heb. Dis. ii. § viii. II Ant. B. x. Ch. xi. § 7. 



II.] appindex. xiii 

the Lord Jesus Christ; and because, also, by placing him among books not 
regarded as possessing prophetic authority, the weight of his testimony would 
be diminished. Jt also appears well established, that the Lamentations and 
the other writings of Jeremiah were anciently reckoned as one book; and 
equally stationed, as is so evidently necessary, among the Prophets. 

2. Before we proceed further, it appears necessary to ascertain what is the 
idea properly belonging to a Prophet and his writings. 

It seems extraordinary that so learned a writer as Leusden should pronounce 
it improper to call all the books so denominated by the Jews — the Prophets, 
" because some of them are in reality historical books, and differ much from 
prophetical writings properly so called*;" when it is certain that the seeming 
impropriety only arises from our attaching the modern idea to the term 
prophet, and forgetting that of the ancients, and particularly of the Jews. 
We now generally think of a Prophet as a foreteller of future events ; but 
this idea is not at all conveyed by the Hebrew name for the character, 
which properly implies an utterer or enunciator of communications from God ; 
or, as Parkhurst gives it, more generally, an interpreter of GooVs will, to whom 
lie freely and familiarly revealed himself : in which sense alone is it applicable 
to Abraham; [Gen. xx. 7;] or to Aaron: "And the Lord said unto Moses, 
See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy 
trophet : thou shalt speak all that I command thee, and Aaron thy brother 
shall speak unto Pharaoh," — not a prediction, observe, but a command, — 
"that he send the children of Israel out of his land." [Ex. vii. 1, 2.] 
This is illustrated in another place, where the Lord says unto Moses, " Thou 
shalt speak unto him, [Aaron,] and put vsords in his mouth; — and he shall be thy 
spokesman unto the people: and he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and 
thou shalt be to him instead of God.^ [Ch. iv. 15, 16.] If then Moses was 
to Aaron what God is to a prophet, and Aaron was to Moses, what a prophet 
is to God, it is perfectly evident that, in the original sense of the term, a 
prophet is one who receives words from God, and declares them to man: he is 
an enunciator of a divine message, let the subject of that message be what it 
ma}': and it is only because it frequently happened that divine communications 
Telated to things future, that the word at last acquired the signification of a 
predicter of future events. As the above is the idea constantly attached in 
the Scriptures of plenary inspiration to the word prophet, the Jewish philo- 
logers have endeavoured to find it in the word itself. The Hebrew root is 
m'BBA (K3J); which the celebrated Solomon Jarchi says is formed from 
another root, noub or nob (2j0> by the addition of an aleph (tf) taken out of 
the name of God (Q^nbtf): now the word Nan radically signifies to put forth 
as a plant its buds or fruit, whence, transferred to human speech, it means to 
utter, which is another kind of putting forth: when therefore from this verb is 
formed the verb m'BBA, by the addition of an aleph takeu from the name of God, it 
means to titter from divine dictation. The signification thus given to the word 
fox prophesying is equally clear and weighty: nor does it suffer any detraction 
from the fancifulness of the etymology : for the meaning of the word is not 
dependent upon the etymology, but the etymology was invented to account 
for the well-known meaning of the word.J That the ancient Greeks, from 
whom we have received the word prophet, understood it in a similar sense, is 
abundantly proved by Schleusner. 

* Phil Eeb. Dis. ii. § iii, f See Gusset. Comm. in voce. 



xiv APPENDIX. [NO. 

It is quite evident then, that the "word prophet, in the Scriptures, does not 
merely signify a foreteller of future events, but may be as applicable to 
Anterior as to Posterior Prophets. It is also evident, that when the Jews 
gave this name to their sacred writings, they meant to affirm that they were 
written by immediate divine dictation : and as the propriety of the application 
is recognised, as will presently be seen, by the Lord Jesus Christ, we have, in 
this name alone, no contemptible evidence, that the books to which it is ap- 
plied are the productions of plenary and verbal inspiration. 

3. Such being the character of the Prophets, what is that of the Hagio- 
grapha? 

(1.) Among the books of the Hagiographa, when the catalogue is corrected as 
above, it is certain that the Lord Jesus Christ only acknowledges as divine the 
book of Psalms; for wbeH' speaking of the whole Scriptures, he calls it the 
Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms: "All things must be fulfilled, 
which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the 
Psalms, concerning me* :" and, doubtless, there is no book among those written 
by plenary inspiration, which does not, either in its literal or mystical sense, 
treat at all of him. At other times, when he intends to speak of the whole 
Word of God, he calls it, more compendiously, " the Law and the Prophetsf," 
or " Moses and the Prophets J ;" and then he evidently includes among " the 
Prophets " the book of Psalms, much of which is palpably, and the whole of it 
really, of a prophetical character : accordingly, David, the chief author of the 
Psalms, is expressly denominated by Peter " a prophet§ ;" which title is never 
conferred on the writers of the other books called Hagiographa. Ezra him- 
self, whom the Jews hold in such honour, has no higher rank given him than 
that of " a scribe||," »' a ready scribe in the law of Moses^f," and " a scribe of the 
law of the God of heaven**;" — titles which lend much support to the opinion, 
that he restored the copies of the plenarily inspired Scriptures, and in a man- 
ner republished them, but give no countenance whatever to the notion that his 
original writings are equally inspired. On other occasions the Lord Jesu3 
Christ calls the whole of the books which are eminently the Scriptures, " the 
Lawft," and especially quotes the Psalms by that name.JJ It is quite 
certain then, that, by this infallible Authority, the Psalms are placed on an 
equality with the Law and the Prophets, and are even recognised as a part of 
them : — a rank which can on no pretence be claimed for the other books of the 
Hagiographa. By the same divine authority, Daniel is taken from the 
Hagiographa, and established in his proper grade among the Prophcts§§ : the 
book of Lamentations did not require a similar recognition, if it was then 
reckoned as part of Jeremiah. 

An objection or two here demand notice. 

(2.) When I say, that this rank can on no pretence be claimed for the other 
books of the Hagiographa, I am not ignorant that it is customary to affirm, 
that where the Lord mentions the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, he in- 
cludes under the latter title the whole of the Hagiographa. but really this is a 
pure figment, invented by the schools to support the credit of books, the true 
nature of which they did not know how to estimate, and which they saw, un- 
less they could thus be tacked on to the Psalms, must be confessed to be dis- 

* Luke xxiv. 44. t Matt. v. 17 ; xi. 13 ; xxii. 40. % Luke xvi. 29, 31 ; xxlv. 27. 

§ Acts ii. 30. || Neh. viii. 1. et passim. f Ezra vii. 6. ** Ver. 12. 21. 
tf Matt. v. 18 ; Luke xvi. 17. U John x. 34. $§ Matt. xxiv. 1& 



II.] APPENDIX. XV 

owned, by divine authority, as forming part of the proper Word of God. In 
behalf of this fiction it is urged, that it was customary with the Jews to con- 
nect several books in a volume, and to call them all by the name of the first : 
but no example of their thus connecting so many and so different books toge- 
ther, and giving to them all the name of the first, can be produced. It is urged, 
that it was usual thus to unite the books of Judges and Ruth, and to call them 
both " Judges :" but every one must see that this is by no means a parallel 
case, since Ruth might, without any obvious impropriety, be considered as a 
supplement to Judges. The union of Jeremiah with Lamentations, which is 
also pleaded, is still less in point : since these are unquestionably from the pen 
of one writer. The calling of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah the first and 
second books of Ezra, is not more to the purpose, since this originated in the 
mistake of supposing that celebrated "scribe" to be the author of them both. 
And to appeal to the book of the twelve minor prophets, is to produce a com- 
parison destitute of all similitude, since this combination is not named, as the 
case in proof of which it is cited requires, Rosea, but the Twelve. Indeed, as 
well might the Divine Speaker, instead of " the Law " have said " Genesis," and 
"Judges" instead of " the Prophets," as have named " the Psalms" instead of 
the Hagiographa: and as well might the learned undertake to prove that he 
deviated from the peculiar Jewish modes of citation in not using the two first 
titles, as that he followed it in using the last.* 

(3.) Nor is the division of the Scriptures anciently used by the Greeks, 
which regards the books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Canticles, 
as possessing a common poetical character, and thus proper to form a general 
book together ; and which many have maintained to be the division alluded to 
by the Lord Jesus Christ ; at all capable of being better accommodated to his 
words: though it seems to have been contrived expressly for the purpose. 
This theory assumes as its basis, that these five books are the only poetical 
books in the Bible, and may on that account all be included under the descrip- 
tion of psalms or hymns : but beside that none of these, except the proper book 
of Psalms, (unless it be that of Canticles,) is at all adapted for singing, it is in- 
dubitably known, since the labours of Bishop Lowth, that all the prophetical 
books have as much right to be called poetical as these, the language of them 
all possessing quite as decided a rhythmical arrangement. Josephus, also, who, 
beside the law and thirteen historical and prophetical books, reckons four 
others, says of these four, that they " contain hymns to God, AM) precepts for 
the conduct of human lifef;" whence it is evident, that the title of Hymns or 
Psalms, far from being common to all the books since called the poetical one?, 

* An example which Home gives of "the Jewish manner of quoting," (vol. il. p. 149, 
Note 2,) with a view to Illustrate this subject, is singularly mal-a-propos, and shews to 
what weak shifts the defenders of the notion are fain to have recourse: •• St. Peter," he ob- 
serves, " when appealing to prophecies in proof of the gospel, says — 'All the prophets from 
Samuel, and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these 
days,' (Acts iii. 24.) In which passage," adds the learned writer, «* the apostle plainly in- 
cludes the books of Samuel in the class of prophets."— "Who doubts it ? And who doubts 
that when Jesus Christ speaks of "the prophets," he includes the books of Samuel ? But 
St Peter ought only to have mentioned Samuel when he meant all the prophets, to lend 
any countenance to the inference, that when Jesus Christ mentions the Psalms he meant all 
the Hagiographa. Peter's mentioning, beside Samuel, " all the prophets," plainly shews 
that it was not " the Jewish manner of quoting " to cite by the lump, and to destroy all in- 
telligible meaning by palpable misnomers. 

t Against Apion, B. i. § 8. 1 G * 



XVI APPENDIX. [NO. 

was then, as now, limited to the single book which alone answers to the name. 
And assuredly the language of the Lord Jesus Christ, is not less justly appro- 
priated to its subject, or employed with less discrimination, than that of the 
historian Josephus. 

Altogether, it is perfectly evident, that the Jews never gave the name of 
" the Psalms" to any books but the one which bears it at present, and that the 
notion that this was a generic name for the whole Hagiographa has nothing to 
support it but gratuitous assertion : hence it follows, that when the Lord, in 
the passage above cited, mentions " the Psalms," he uses the title in its proper 
and specific sense, and meant to select the book so named from those which the 
Jews called the Hagiographa, and to place this, to the exclusion of the rest, in 
the same rank with " the Law and the Prophets," — to claim for it alone, in 
conjunction with the Law and the Prophets, the honour of immediate and 
plenary inspiration. 

4. Another proof that the books called the Law and the Prophets, with the 
Psalms, are the only books of the Word in the Old Testament, and that those 
properly named Hagiographa are not so, but merely, as the name implies, the 
writings of holy men, is afforded by the striking fact, that the latter are never 
quoted, or in any way referred to, by the Lord or by the Evangelists. Neither 
are any of them, except the book of Proverbs, (four or five times,) and the book 
of Job, (once,} cited or alluded to in the Apostolic Epistles, which so abounds 
with citations from the Law and the Prophets. We shall see presently that the 
book of Proverbs is an authentic doctrinal writing of the Jewish Church ; 
whence it is properly acknowledged in the authentic doctrinal writings of the 
Christian Church : but as such writings, though produced under a special 
illumination, are not absolutely divine, they are not noticed in those books 
which are divine indeed; being the compositions of men, though of highly 
gifted men, they are not recognised by Him who receiveth not testimony from 
man.* If their being quoted in the Epistles proved them to belong to the 
plenarily inspired Scriptures, we must receive as plenarily inspired Scripture 
the apocryphal book of Enoch, quoted by Judef, and the comedies of Menander, 
cited by Paul J; if not, also, the Phoznomena of Aratus§, and the Chresmoi of 
Epimenides.|| 

5. The distinction, then, between the Hagiographa and those writings which 
the Scriptures themselves acknowledge as the Scriptures, is marked, by the 
highest Authority, with a line sufficiently broad and impassable : and it is 
equally admitted by the Jews themselves, who, though their ideas on the sub- 
ject do not seem very clear, affirm the inspiration of the Hagiographa to be 
essentially different in its kind from that of the Law and the Prophets. Home 
states on this subject^, (and his statement is the same in substance with that 
of Leusden**,) that " this third class or division of the Sacred Books ha3 r© 
ceived its appellation of Cetubim, or Holy Writings, because they were not 
orally delivered, as the law of Moses was ; but the Jews affirm, that they were 
composed by men divinely inspired, who, however, had no public mission as 
prophets, and the Jews conceived, that they were dictated not by dreams, 
visions, or voice, or in other ways, as the oracles of the prophets were, but that 
they were more immediately revealed to the minds of their authors:" and what 
is this but confessing, that they were not positively dictated at all, but were the 

* John v. 34. f Ver. 14. J 1 Cor. xv. 33. § Acts xvii. 28. 

A Tit. i. 12 % Introd. VoL il. p. 150. ** Phil. Ueb. Dis. il. § ix. 



II.] APPENDIX. Xvii 

thoughts of the minds of the author?, the result of a certain illumination which 
they had received? It is true, that this is described by the Jews in pretty 
high terms ; but not in higher than those in which they speak of their Talmud 
and its Rabbins, all whose writings or sayings, though often avowedly contra- 
dictory to each other, they equally affirm to be the productions of inspiration.* 
They admit, however, thi3 inspiration to be not the same as that of Moses and 
the prophets. But only two general kinds of inspiration can possibly be con- 
ceived ; the one being that in which the inspired person is entirely possessed 
by the inspiring power, and, no longer compos sui, is the mere organ for ex- 
pressing its dictations; — in which, according to the precisely accurate definition 
of the Apostle Peter, the prophecy, or thing enunciated, comes not at the -will, or 
pleasure, of man, but the party speaks as he is moved or actuated by the Holy 
Ghost\ ; — and the other being that in which the speaker or writer still remains 
his own master, and what he delivers proceeds from his own mind, though from 
a mind illuminated by a wisdom which is the gift of God ; which species of 
inspiration, also, the same Apostle defines with the same accuracy, when he 
says, " Even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given 
unto him, hath written unto you."J Now as the Jews do not affirm that their 
Hagiographers possessed the first of these kinds of inspiration, it follows, how- 
ever they may express it, that they only mean to claim for them the second. 

6. A clear distinction, then, we find, between the inspiration of the absolute 
Word of God and that of the Hagiographa, comes out full on all hands : and a 
slight inspection of the principal of these writings will further evince, that an 
inferior kind of inspiration, but sometimes attended with great illumination, is 
the highest to which they have any pretensions. 

(1.) We have stated above, that, owing to the manner in which the letter of 
the Divine Word is necessarily constructed, it is according to the order of 
Divine Providence, that, under every dispensation which derives its knowledge 
of divine things from a written Word, men should be raised up to deliver 
authoritatively, in less ambiguous language, the doctrines proper to guide the 
faith and practice of that church; which doctrines are all contained in the 
Word itself, and are all capable of being confirmed by express declarations of 
its literal sense. Now who will not readily admit, that the books of Proverbs 
and Ecclesiastes, though not drawn up in the style that would be chosen by 
modern composers of Bodies of Divinity, are writings of this character, deliver- 
ing, in a compendious form, the authentic doctrines of the yet uncorrupt church 
of Israel? How many plain precepts of true wisdom are presented, in the 
former part of the book of Proverbs, as the exhortations of Wisdom personified ! 
In the latter part, how many dictates of prudence regarding the conduct of life ! 
In the book of Ecclesiastes, how impressive a sermon is delivered on the un- 
satisfactoriness of all earthly enjoyments ; — a sermon most admirably adapted 
to the correction of the Jewish character, which is so prone to place, in earthly 
enjoyments, the whole of its satisfactions ! So, after the author of " the Pro- 
verbs," has propounded the design of the book, and has stated, almost in so 
many words, that he is about to deliver a body of doctrine, how suitably to such 
a design does he begin his instructions with declaring, in a quotation from the 
plenarily inspired Scriptures which speaks the plain truth in the letter, that 
f the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge § !" and how appropriately 

* Leusd. Phil Heb. Mixt. Dis. xii. § vi. Dis. xiii. t 2 Pet. i. 21. 

t Ch. iii. 15. § Prov. i. 7 : See Ps. cxi. 10. 



xviii APPENDIX. [no. 

as well as pithily does the author of Ecclesiastes close his work with the sum 
of all true doctrine, concisely stated in language taken from the same source: 
" Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter : Fear God and keep his com- 
mandments: for this is the whole duty of man!"* It is true that both these 
books contain much figurative language ; but they are not written with a uni- 
form regard to the laws of spiritual Analogy, and do not, like those books which 
are so written, include a spiritual sense in a regular series : thus the words in 
which the sentiments are expressed were not dictated, as in the other books, 
to the pen of the writer, but were selected by himself: and though phrases 
borrowed from the language of Analogy are frequently introduced, they are 
such as are still, for the most part, easily intelligible, and must, among the 
orientals, have been quite familiar. Indeed, one intention of the book of Pro- 
verbs is expressly stated to be, to enable the reader " to understand a proverb, 
and the interpretation ; the words of the wise, and their dark sayingsf :" and 
thus to afford a clew to the doctrinal interpretation of the Holy Word, accord- 
ing to the highest views that were capable of being received under the Jewish 
dispensation. 

(2.) But a considerable portion of the books of the Hagiograplia consists of 
historical writings ; and these, if not directly useful for the doctrinal interpre- 
tation of the Word, are yet eminently so for the elucidation of many allusions 
in it, which would be difficult to understand without a knowledge of some 
facts respecting which the historical books of the Word itself are silent. This 
remark is eminently true in regard to the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and 
Chronicles: whatever then might be the degree of the secondary inspiration 
enjoyed by the writers and compilers of those books, we can have little 
hesitation in conceding to them, all that Bishop Tomline requires us to admit 
respecting the historical books that are absolutely the Scriptures; when he 
says, " It is sufficient to believe, that, by the general superintendance of the 
Holy Spirit, they were directed in the choice of their materials, enlightened to 
judge of the truth and importance of those accounts from which they borrowed 
their information, aud prevented from recording any material error ;" a des- 
cription which is as honourable and just, when applied to these Hagiographers, 
as it is unjust and degrading when applied to the Anterior Prophets. 

(3.) But what shall we say of the Song of Solomon ? Doubtless the reader 
expects that I should be glad of a plea for taking this book out of the Hagio- 
yrapha, and vindicating its title to a place among the prophets. Many who 
will deny the Scriptures to be written in the language of Analogy, and will not 
hear of their containing a spiritual sense throughout, will be ready enough to 
make us a present of this book, to be thus decyphered, and proved to be really an 
edifying performance. But we cannot avail ourselves of the boon: and we 
think that modern expositors have erred as much in seeking for spiritual 
mysteries in this amatory effusion, as in rejecting them in the greater part of 
the books which are essentially divine. Here the interpreters are ready to 
adopt any mode of explanation that will give a religious turn — to what ? to a 
work which never speaks of God, nor shews by a single trait that God was 
ever in the thoughts of the writer. Even the true principle of spiritual inter- 
pretation has here been thought of, and endeavoured to be applied : and the 
analogy of the marriage covenant has been beautifully deduced for this 
purpose by Bishop Lowth.J Speaking of the covenant between God and his 

* EccL xii. 13 : See Deut. vL 2. t Ch. i. 6. % Apud Home, Vol. iv. p. 141, MIL 



II.] APPENDIX. Xix 

church, the conditions of which are, " on the one part, love, protection, and 
support; on the other, faith, obedience, and worship pure and devout;" he 
proceeds thus : " This is that conjugal union between God and his church ; that 
solemn compact so frequently celebrated by almost all the sacred writers under 
this image. It is, indeeed, a remarkable instance of that species of metaphor 
which Aristotle calls analogical; that is, when, in a proposition consisting of four 
ideas, the first bears the same relation to the second as the third does to the 
fourth, and the corresponding words may occasionally change their place3 
without injury to the sense. Thus, in this form of expresssion, God is supposed 
to bear exactly the same relation to the church as a husband to a wife ; 
God is represented as the spouse of the church, and the church as betrothed to 
God. Thus also, when the same figure is maintained with a different mode of 
expression, and connected with different circumstances, the relation is still the 
same : thus the piety of the people, their impiety, their idolatry, and rejection, 
stand in the same relation with respect to the sacred covenant, as cnastity, 
modesty, immodesty, adultery, with respect to the marriage contract," &c. 
This is a valuable testimony in favour of the principle of Analogy, the regu- 
larity which properly belongs to it, and its use in the Word of God ; it is also 
an elegant and clear elucidation of the specific analogy which the marriage- 
union bears to the connection of God with his church ; but to apply this to 
the erotic strains of the Song of songs, appears a real prostitution. The image 
is truly said to be of frequent occurrence in the really divine bookVof Scripture ; 
but it is there always used with the dignity and gravity suited to the august 
Being who is the principal party in the represented union. It is true, also, 
that the image afforded by the conjugal covenant is exactly representative of 
the union between God and his church : but every love-song is not therefore 
to be gravely explained of this sacred union : and it will be difficult to say, if 
this explanation is to be admitted in regard to the Song of Solomon, why it 
should not be applied to the Idyls of Theocritus, between which and the 
Hebrew poem the critics have discovered some extraordinary points of simili- 
tude. It is true, again, that the language of the book, like that of all oriental 
poetry, is, throughout, loaded with figures, some of which, no doubt, are drawn 
from the language of Analogy : but it is not the containing of a few, nor even 
of many, phrases and ideas of this kind, that will impart to a book a truly 
spiritual sense. As hieroglyphical representations were applied to other sub- 
jects beside religious ones, so were the forms cf speech drawn from the lower 
analogies. Thus, of ideas connected with the subject of love, numerous images 
may be found in inanimate and irrational objects. Various significant 
phrases of this kind are contained in this poem; and because these give it a 
mystical air, it has been assumed to be a divine composition, treating of no 
lower love than that between the Lord and his church. As a sample of Asiatic 
poetry, the Song of Solomon may be very beautiful ; and it certainly is very 
interesting, as a curious remain of antiquity: but as it contains nothing that 
savours of holiness, any further than as all mutual love that is sincere and pure 
is holy, there is room to suspect that the Jews have made a mistake in putting 
this poem even among their Hagiographa. Not one reference to it can be fairly 
traced in the New Testament ; though the commentators, sensible how much 
it stood in need of countenance, have not failed to force a few. 

Very different is the book of Job, which abounds with real spiri'nal 
analogies, and the whole structure of which is doubtless framed to convey an 



XX APPENDIX. [NO. 

important spiritual lesson. Its great antiquity is acknowledged ; and indeed 
it scarcely seems to be a writing belonging to the Mosaic dispensation : but an 
attempt to estimate the true character of this book would demand an extended 
discussion, and is not at all necessary to the present argument. 

Perhaps we may now be permitted to consider, that the point in question, as 
far as regards the Old Testament is established; — that in that division of the 
Bible the books properly called the Law and the Prophets, with the Psalms, are 
alone written by the plenary inspiration ; and that the bulk of those denomi- 
nated Eagiographa consists of doctrinal, and supplementary historical writ- 
ings, designed to assist the interpretation of the former. 

III. In regard to the smaller collection of the New Testament, the case will 
be found to be the same : and though here we do not possess, respecting the 
several books which compose it, the recorded testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ 
to determine to which class they respectively belong, the internal evidence 
afforded by the books themselves is sufficient to guide our judgment : beside 
which, strong external evidence may also be offered. 

Suppose then, in the New Testament, the four Gospels be considered as 
possessing a character similar to that of the Law and Anterior Prophets of the 
Old Testament, and the Apocalypse as belonging to the same class a3 the 
Posterior Prophets; whilst the Acts of the Apostles, and their Epistles, answer 
to the ancient Eagiographa, though replete with the superior light belonging 
to a higher dispensation : thus that the Gospels and Apocalypse were written 
by the primary and plenary, and the Acts and Epistles by the secondary and 
personal inspiration : in which case in the former books the very words will 
be inspired, and will contain a spiritual sense within them, and in the latter, 
the doctrinal sentiments alone will partake of inspiration. 

1. We will not here offer any examples to shew, that the Gospels and 
Apocalypse contain a spiritual sense, which is the necessary consequence of 
plenary inspiration ; some are given in the Lectures themselves. But we may 
observe, (1.) as some sort of external evidence, that an idea of the greater 
sanctity, and more immediate divinity, of the Gospels than of the Epistles, ex- 
tensively prevailed in the early ages of Christianity. I take a few testimonies 
hastily from Lardner. 

Ignatius speaks of " fleeing to the Gospel as the flesh of Jesus, and to the 
Apostles, as the presbyters of the church.''''* Justin Martyr says, " The Gospels 
were read publicly as well as the Old Testamentf ;" but he does not say the 
same of the Epistles. Irenaeus says, " the doctrines of the Apostles are agree' 
able to the Sacred ScripturesJ ;" thus distinguishing them from the Scriptures 
themselves. Augustine says, " In the New Testament, the four Gospels have 
the higJiest authority.^ 

(2.) That the Gospels are written by the plenary inspiration, is also what 
any man would naturally expect, who reflects on the nature of the matters 
which they contain ; for surely no language but that of plenary inspiration can 
be worthy of recording the actions and discourses of the Incarnate God. The 
subject is too eminently sacred, and too profoundly important, to be easily 
compatible with the supposition, that He to whom it relates would suffer the 

* Gospel History, vol. iii. p. 178, 8vo. ed. t Vol. iil. p. 262. 

% lb. p. 393. § VoL xii. p. 302. 



II.] APPENDIX. Xxi 

narratives of it, which have actually been received as authentic and venerated 
as divine through all ages of the church, to be composed in any but the truly 
divine style of writing. If the books of Moses and the Anterior Prophets, 
which are chiefly of the historical kind, recording the dealings of God with the 
children of Israel, were, on account of the spiritual signification of the things 
of which they treat, delivered in the style which constitutes a writing the 
absolute Word of God, and were, as we have seen, acknowledged as such by 
the Word Incarnate; much more should we expect that the Authentic ac- 
counts of the Incarnation, Life, Death, Resurrection, and Glorification, of the 
Word made Flesh, would be given by the same inspiration, and would equally 
belong to the written Word. All such parts of them as record the dis- 
courses of the Lord Jesus Christ, if they only faithfully record them, must be 
of this character. For, as is shewn in the Lectures, all revelation of the 
Divine Truth flows from God, who is in the inmost of all things, into the 
world of nature, and there clothes itself with natural expressions ; whence it 
necessarily includes spiritual and divine ideas in its bosom which do not appear 
upon the surface: now if we believe the Lord Jesus Christ, while on earth, to 
have been the Divine Truth itself personified, — to have been " the Word " 
which "was with God," and which "was God*,'' "made Fleshf," then must 
all his words have been divine in the most absolute sense ; they must have 
flowed from the Divinity resident within him, and must have been the proper 
expressions, in natural language, supplied from the human part of his constitu- 
tion, of the pure Divine Wisdom : accordingly, as is shewn in the second 
LectureJ, he himself claims for them a spiritual and divine meaning. And all 
the actions of this wonderful Being must have been equally expressive. For, 
as is shewn in ttie third Lecture, none of the objects in outward nature are 
arbitrary creations, — mere shells of matter unconnected with any spiritual 
essence, but are actual outbirths from things of a superior order, — develope- 
ments in a lower sphere of purer existences in a higher, and first originating in 
their prototypes in the Divine Nature, for the expression of which they thus 
afford the proper corresponding types. Now if this is the character of all the 
works of Divinity, it must equally be the character of all the actions of a 
Being who had Divinity within him. As every word which the Lord Jesus 
Christ spoke while on earth, he spoke from the Divinity within him; so every 
work which he performed, he performed from the same Source; and both must 
equally have been expressions of divine affections and ideas. When he spoke, 
he could not but communicate divine instruction ; and when he acted, he could 
not but communicate divine instruction also ; only, as the commentators affirm 
of many typical events in the Old Testament, he then communicated instruc- 
tion by actions instead of words. Is it then to be supposed, that the just re- 
cording of actions so weighty, the true import of which might be lost by the 
slightest misstatement, or by the use, in describing them, of a single inap- 
propriate expression, would not be provided for by a plenary and verbal in- 
spiration ? The recording of the most wonderful of all events that have evei 
been transacted on the theatre of the universe, and the most pregnant with 
eternal consequences, is too holy an ark to be touched with unhallowed hands ; 
and all hands must here be regarded as unhallowed, even those of the holiest of 
men, if in any respect actuated by " the will of men,"— if not entirely, to the 
exclusion of all human operation, possessed and " moved by the Holy Ghost." 
* John i. 1. f Vcr. 14. % P. 41, 42. 



XXli APPENDIX. [NO. 

(S.) But proof quite demonstrative of the plenary and verbal inspiration of 
the Evangelists, might, I am satisfied, be drawn out of the famous controversy 
on the origin of the three first Gospels: but to do any justice to this argument 
would require an extended discussion ; and our limits will here confine us to 
a brief statement. 

No one can have read the New Testament with any attention, without hav- 
ing observed, that there is, among the three first Gospels, a considerable simi- 
larity, which extends so far, that they frequently detail occurrences in the very 
same words. This has given rise to an opinion, that they, in part at least, 
copied from each other; and as the resemblance is greatest between Matthew 
and Mark, it became usual with many to consider the Gospel of Mark as a mere 
abridgment of that of Matthew. More accurate examination, however, has 
shewn, that this is a mistake; and it has even been proved to be in the highest 
degree probable, that the Evangelists never saw each other's compositions, and 
quite certain that not one of them copied from either of the others in preparing 
his own. This beiug ascertained, the critics, to account for their resemblances, 
had recourse to the supposition, that some prior document, since lost, was ex- 
tant before any of the Gospels was written, and that the three first Evangelists, 
though they did not copy from each other, all drew from one coramonxsource. 
But it was soon found that the supposition of one previous document would by 
no means account for all the circumstances of the case : and whoever wishes to 
see the extent of gratuitous supposition which the advocates of this theory are 
compelled to employ, before they can make it yield even a possible solution of 
the difficulty, should consult Bishop Marsh's elaborate Essay on the origin of 
the three first Gospels, appended to his translation of Michaelis on the New 
Testament: the learned writer is obliged to conjure up no fewer than ten ima- 
ginary sets of memoirs, before he can find sufficient materials for the construc- 
tion of these Gospels : and, after all, his hypothesis has been shewn, by Bishop 
Randolph, Mr. Veysie, and others, not completely to explain the phenomena, 
and, if it did, to be itself attended with difficulties which render its truth im- 
possible. Other attempts to account for the coincidences and variations of the 
three first Evangelists, upon the supposition of their being drawn from prior 
documents, have been made : but their failure has been such as completely to 
prove, that the theory of their copying from previous documents is as incapable 
of solving the circumstances of the case, as that of their copying from one 
another. 

What then must be the conclusion ? 

The facts, be it remembered, are these : 

A frequent verbal agreement occurs among the three Evangelists, and this, 
not only when they relate the discourses of the Lord Jesus Christ, where some 
agreement might be expected ; but when they are narrating facts. 

But it is evident, that if two or three eye-witnesses of certain facts were 
afterwards to draw up an account of them, though they might agree in the 
main circumstances, they would never relate them in precisely the same 
words. 

Where, then, two or more merely human historians relate their facts in pre- 
cisely the same words, we have a sure proof that they either copied from each 
other, or from some common document accessible to them all. 

But it appears to be certain, that the coincidences of the Evangelists cannot 
be accounted for from either of these causes. 



II.] appendix. xxiii 

What solution then remains, but that they drew from a common source of a 
different nature; viz. from the Spirit of God, which not only inspired them in 
regard to the facts which they were to record, (which degree of inspiration, 
even, is totally incompatible with the picking and culling, altering and omit- 
ting processes which the other theories involve,) but dictated to their pens the 
very words in which they should record them ? This is, in reality, the most 
natural solution of the difficulty ; or rather, it is a solution of the case which 
removes all difficulty : since the circumstances are found to admit of no other, 
it is the only possible one, also ; and, to those who admit the possibility, which, 
I believe, none have ever denied, of plenary and verbal inspiration, it is equally 
easy and satisfactory. 

And if this will account for the verbal agreements of the Evangelists, it will 
equally account for their variations: but that is a question which we will not 
take up here. Something is said upon it in the sixth Lecture. 

There is then, unquestionably, very strong reason for supposing, that the 
Gospels are written by plenary inspiration, and, of course, contain a spiritual 
sense within the outward expression : and surely as much may be said of that 
evidently symbolic and mysterious composition, the Apocalypse. We may 
then safely assume, that these books are the plenarily inspired writings, — the 
Law and the Prophets, — of the New Testament. 

2. And it will be found, on a careful examination, that the other books of 
the New Testament are its Hagiographa, and are to be understood, except 
when they relate visions or prophecies, b} T their literal expression alone ; that 
they contain the doctrines of the Christian religion, with the actions of some 
»f its first promoters, written by men whose minds were under a general illu- 
mination from the Spirit of God. 

(1.) In application to these books, the nature of inspiration is accurately 
laid down by Dr. A. Clarke, in the words of Dr. Whitby, one of the most 
learned and highly esteemed of the Commentators on the New Testament : but 
I choose to take his testimony from Dr. Clarke, because it thus comes as the 
decision both of Church-of-England and of Methodist orthodoxy. Dr. W., 
indeed, applies his assertions to all the writers of the New Testament ; but it 
is remarkable, that he finds bis proofs in the Epistolary compositions alone. 
His words are these : 

" I contend only for such an inspiration or divine assistance of the sacred 
writers of the New Testament, as will assure us of the truth of what they wrote, 
whether by inspiration of suggestion, or direction only; but not for such an in- 
spiration as implies, that even their words were dictated, or their phrases sug- 
gested, by the Holy Ghost. This, in some matters of great moment, might be 
so ; St. Paul declaring that * they spoke the things which were given them of 
God, in the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth,' (1 Cor. ii. 13 ;) if that re- 
late not to what the Holy Ghost had taught them out of the Old Testament. But 
that it was not always so, is evident, both from the consideration that they 
were Eagiographers, who are suffered to be left to the use of their own words ; 
and from the variety of the style in which they write*, and from the solecisms 
which are sometimes visible in their compositions ; and more especially from 
their own words, which manifestly shew, that, in some cases, they had no such 
suggestion from the Holy Ghost, as doth imply, that he had dictated those 
words unto them. For instance, when St. Paul declares his will or purpose to 
* This however, as is shewn in the Lecture above, is not a conclusive reason. 



XXIV APPENDIX. [NO. 

do what he was hindered by the providence of God from doing; as when he 
says to the Romans : * When I go into Spain, I will come to you,' (ch. xv. 24.) 
« I will come by you into Spain,' (ver. 28.) For though he might, after his 
enlargement, go into the west, where St. Clement says he preached ; and even 
into Spain, as Cyril, Epiphanius, and Theodoret, say he did ; yet it is certain 
he did not designedly go to Rome in order to an intended journey into Spain. 
And when he says to the Corinthians, * I will come to you when I pass through 
Macedonia,' (1 Cor. xvi. 5,) and yet confesses, in his second Epistle (i. 15, 1C . 
17,) that he did not perform that journey : for it is not to be thought the Holy 
Ghost should incite him to promise, or even to purpose, what he knew he would 
not perform. This also we learn from all those places in which they do express 
their ignorance, or doubtfulness, of that which they are speaking of; as when 
St. Paul says, 1 1 know not whether I baptized any other,' (1 Cor. i. 16:) and 
again, 4 Perhaps I will abide with you, and winter with you,' (1 Cor. xvi. 6 :) 
and when St. Peter says, ' By Sylvanus, a faithful brother, as I suppose, I have 
written unto you.' (1 Pet. v. 12.) For these words do plainly shew, that in 
all these things they had no inspiration or divine assistance. This, lastly, may 
be gathered from all those places in which they only do express their hope, 
and that conditionally, of doing this or that ; as in these words : ' I hope to see 
you in my journey,' (Rom. xv. 2 :) * I will come unto you quickly, i/the Lord 
will:' (I Cor. iv. 19:) ' I hope to stay some time with you, if the, Lord per- 
mit :' (1 Cor. xvi. 7.) ' / hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy quickly to 
you;' (Phil. ii. 19, 23.) ' And / trust that I mvself also shall come quickly ;' 
(24.) ' These things I write, hoping to come to thee quickly; but if I should 
tarry, that thou mayest know how to behave thyself in the church of God ;' 
(1 Tim. iii. 14, 15.) ' I hope by your prayers, to be given unto you;' (Philem. 
22.) ' This will we do, if the Lord permit;' (Heb. vi. 3 :) ' I hope to come to 
3'ou.' (St. John, 2 Ep. 12, 3 Ep. 14.) For spes est incertce rei nomen; — the 
word hope implies an uncertainty ; whereas the Holy Spirit cannot be uncer- 
tain of any thing; nor can we think he would inspire men to speak so uncer- 
tainly; and there can be no necessity, nor even a use, of a divine assistance to 
enable a man to express his hopes, seeing all men do, by natural reflection, 
know them." 

It will douhtless be admitted, that Dr. Whitby has here proved, with perfect 
clearness, that the New Testament has its Hagiographa as well as the Old. 
Thus he has proved, that the Apostolical Epistles are not writings of plenary 
inspiration, and that the personal inspiration of the first teachers of Christianity 
consisted in a general illumination and divine direction, but did not extend to 
their very words. I will only add a few remarks upon a passage in their 
writings, which, while it plainly declares that their inspiration was not in 
general more immediate than this, has mistakenly been supposed to imply 
also, that on some occasions what they delivered was the absolute Word of 
the Lord. 

(2.) The Apostle Paul, when giving his advice on certain questions relating 
to the marriage state, says, " But I speak this by permission, not of command- 
ment" * Presently he says, " And unto the married / command, yet not I, but 
the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband : but and if she depart, let 
her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband : And let not the hus- 
band put away his wife. But to the rest speak T, not the Lord. y, \ Again he 
* 1 Cor. vii. 6. f Ver. 10,11,12. 



II.] APPENDIX. XXV 

says, "Now concerning virgins, I have no commandment of the Lord: yet I 
give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful."'* 
Again, respecting a widow's remaining single, he says, " She is happier if she 
80 abide, after my judgment: and I think also that I have the Spirit of God."\ 
Here he expressly gives his own judgment, as something distinct from, and 
inferior to, the positive command of the Lord, and not even infallible ; and yet 
as the result of a certain inspiration, — of his possessing the Spirit of God. He 
plainly teaches then, that his own personal inspiration consisted in a certain 
general illumination of the understanding: but what is the commandment of 
the Lord, which he considers so superior? Authors tell us, " that the subject 
of which the Apostle here delivers his opinion, was a matter of Christian pru- 
dence, — not a part of religious sentiment or practice." " But," they say, " the 
Apostle's declaration, that as to this particular matter, he spoke by permission 
and not of commandment, strongly implies, that in other things, in things really 
of a religious nature, he did speak by commandment from the Lord. Accord- 
ingly, in the same chapter, when he had occasion to speak of what was matter 
of moral duty, he immediately claimed to be under divine direction in what he 
wrote : And unto the married I command, yet not I but the Lord, Let not the 
wife depart frontier husband '."$ But the distinction between points of duty 
and of prudence here laid down, will not hold through : for the advice which 
the Apostle introduces with, " But unto the rest speak I, not the Lord," does 
relate to a question of moral duty: it is no less than this: Whether the recep- 
tion of Christianity is a justificatory plea for putting away a wife or deserting 
a husband : and the Apostle decides it thus : " If any brother hath a wife that 
believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her 
away§:" &c. The decision is worthy of a judgment enlightened, as the 
Apostle affirms of his, by " the Spirit of God :" again then we ask, What is 
that commandment of the Lord which he considers so superior? Evidently, it 
is the express decision of the Lord himself, pronounced while in the world, and 
recorded in the books of plenary inspiration : and we find the very command- 
ment which Paul says is not his but the Lord's, in Matt. xix. 9, Mark x. 11, 
12, and Luke xvi. 18 : and the first Gospel was certainly written, and the 
others very probably, before this Epistle to the Corinthians : But if it can be 
proved that he had not learned the fact in this way, then it will follow, that, 
as he seems to intimate in Gal. i. 12, he had received by immediate revelation, 
a knowledge of the chief passages of the Lord's life and discourses in the world : 
and this may afford countenance to the opinion which many have enter- 
tained, that he was the real author of the third of the Gospels, and that it was 
only written by Luke as his amanuensis. However he became acquainted with 
it, certain it is that he knew that the Lord had delivered such a commandment, 
and that he speaks of this as a different thing from his own customary and 
personal inspiration. Just in the same manner he distinguishes, on other occa- 
sions, between his own sentiments and the authoritative declarations of the 
Scriptures themselves ; as when he says in the next chapter but one, " Say I 
these things as a man ? or saith not the Law the same also?"|| and quotes a 
passage from Deuteronomy. Plainly then does this Apostle avow, what Peter 
affirms of him, that he wrote according w tne wisaom given unto him; and fairly 

* Ver. 25. t Ver. 40. 

X Parry on the Inspiration of the Apostles, &c, apud Home, vol. i. p. 5G3. 

§ Ver. 12 to 15. || Ch.ix.8. 



XXVI APPENDIX. [NO. 

does lis acknowledge that this inspiration is different from that, the subjects of 
which spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. 

Altogether it appears perfectly evident, that the Epistles are doctrinal writ- 
ings, given through eminently illuminated men, to afford a clew to the doc- 
trinal interpretation of the plenarily inspired Scriptures; respecting which 
they testify, among other things, that they are written by a more immediate 
inspiration, and, differently from themselves, contain a spiritual sense within 
the covering of the Letter; some of their testimony to which effect is given in 
our second Lecture.* 

Without the slightest wish then to depreciate either the Apostolic writings 
or the Hagiographa of the Old Testament, it must, we think, be conceded, that 
the Gospels and Apocalypse, the Law and the Prophets, are compositions of a 
very different order. All that is said, by modern definers of Inspiration, of the 
sacred books in general, we readily concede to be true of the writings which 
we have now been considering : these we leave where the critics have placed 
them : but we would fain elevate the others far higher. Respecting the cha- 
racter of the Apostolic writings in particular, I fully accept the definitions of 
the generally approved Author last quoted: " When they acted as writers, re- 
cording Christianity for the instruction of the church in all succeeding times, I 
apprehend, that they were under the guidance of the Spirit as to the subject of 
which they treated ; that they wrote under his influence and direction ; that 
they were preserved from all error and mistake in the religious sentiments 
they expressed ; and that, if any thing were inserted in their writings, not con- 
tained in that complete knowledge of Christianity of which they were pre- 
viously possessed, (as prophecies for instance,) this was immediately commu- 
nicated to them by revelation from the Spirit. But with respect to the choice 
of words, I know not but they might be left," — says our author, who might 
safely have omitted the words of hesitation, — " to the free and rational exercise 
of their own minds, to express themselves in the manner that was natural and 
familiar to them, while at the same time they were preserved from error in the 
ideas they conveyed."! All this is true : but it is greatly to be lamented, that 
what is true of a part of the writings contained in the Bible, — of the hagiogra- 
phical compositions, only, — should inadvertently have been extended to the 
whole. As it is obvious to every student and believer of the Bible that some 
of its writers were under the influence of a secondary and personal inspiration, 
it has been concluded that this was the case with them all : and as it is evident 
that writings thus produced can have none but the plain grammatical sense; 
whilst the radical difference between compositions of this character and those 
which are the result of an immediate divine afflatus has been overlooked ; many 
have at length concluded, that there is no real sense but the grammatical one 
throughout the Word of God. 

* P. 31, &c, and p. 43 to 49. f Parry apud Home, voL i. p. 561. 



III.] APPENDIX. XXVli 



No. III. (Page 144.) 

THE GREAT OBJECTS AND PHENOMENA OF THE MUNDANE SYSTEM CON- 
SIDERED, AS THEY ARE REFERRED TO IN THE LANGUAGE OF PROPHECY 
AND OF THE SCRIPTURES IN GENERAL. 

The significations of Analogy offered in the Lecture, of the great objects of 
what Sir Isaac Newton calls " the world natural ;" — of heaven, earth, and 
earthquakes ; of the sun, moon, and stars ; and of the darkening of the sun, 
turning of the moon into blood, and falling of the stars ; must, it is presumed, 
be readily perceived to be well founded. Not much argument then will be re- 
quired to establish them. It may, however, be useful to add a few remarks 
upon them, and to shew, by some examples, that such is actually the meaning 
borne by these magnificent symbols in the language of prophecy, and of the 
Holy Word in general. 

I. When the earth or world, in a most general sense, including the whole 
"world natural," is mentioned in Scripture for the church universal, — the 
church considered in the most general manner; it is only by a modification of 
a mode of expression frequent in common discourse. We constantly speak of 
various countries, not with any allusion to the mere soil, but as a metonymy 
for the nations that inhabit them, — for the government and people. It is in 
this sense that we speak of the distress or prosperity of our own country; of 
the policy of France, Austria, or Russia; of the general aspect of the continent; 
and of the growing power of America, or of the new vjorld. Just so it is when 
particular countries, ox when the earth in general, are mentioned in the Word 
of God : the continent is put for the contents ; the land for the inhabitants. 
This then seems to support Sir Isaac Newton's application of "the world 
natural " to " the world politic" But we are to remember, that, in the Word 
of God, he who uses the figure is the Divine Being himself; and in what re- 
spect can the inhabitants of the earth be supposed to be regarded by the Divine 
Mind, but as to their reception or otherwise of the principles which constitute 
the church ? It is not, we may be certain, as to their political, but as to their 
spiritual relations, that the inhabitants of the world are regarded by God. 
They are considered as belonging either to the church properly so called, con- 
sisting of that portion of the inhabitants of the earth who stand in a nearer re- 
lation to the Author of their existence, in consequence of possessing a know- 
ledge of him by revelation ; — or to the church universal, which includes the 
whole of mankind considered in their relation to God. As then, when the earth 
is mentioned in Scripture, the inhabitants of it are meant; and as the inhabit- 
ants are only regarded in their relation to God, that is, as connected with his 
church ; it is perfectly agreeable to the use of a well-known figure of speech, 
to name the earth to signify the church. 

It is also well known, that when the earth is mentioned, it is frequently only 
the land of Canaan that is referred to ; and this is an acknowledged symbol of 
the church : and the meaning is similar, but more universal, when the earth is 
named for the whole "world natural." 

Now that this use of the term is frequent with the prophets, might be shewn 
by numerous examples. Thus, in that beautiful prediction so evidently refer- 



xxviii APPENDIX. [no. 

ring to a future glorious state of the church, when it is declared that " the 
wolf shall dwell with the lamb," and when it is said of the various noxious 
animals, "they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain;" the 
reason assigned for it is this ; " For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of 
the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."* So in that awful denunciation of 
judgments upon the earth, in the twenty-fourth chapter of the same prophet, 
where the word earth or land is repeated almost in every verse; although 
some of the calamities enumerated might seem to relate to the earth, literally, 
yet there is much which shews that the subject really treated of is the church. 
To what else can the words be applied : " The windows from on high are open, 
and the foundations of the earth do shake: the earth is utterly broken down; 
the earth is clean dissolved ; the earth is moved exceedingly : the earth shall 
reel to and fro like a drunkard and shall be removed like a cottage ; and the 
transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall and not rise 
againV'\ The last clause, in particular, is by no means predicable of the 
earth ; but the whole is most accurately descriptive, in the language of 
Analogy, of the utter destruction of the Jewish church ; and to this alone, and 
to the substitution of pure Christianity for corrupt Judaism, can be applied 
what is said of the sun and moon at the conclusion of the prophecv : " Then 
the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of Hosts 
shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients glori- 
ously."! 

II. Without then extending our quotations, it must, wa may presume be 
readily seen, that the earth, when mentioned generally, is used as a symbJ of 
the church. But heaven is spoken of in the Scriptures as frequently as the 
earth ; and it often happens, that heaven and earth are mentioned together : 
and then it may be seen with equal clearness, that by heaven is meant the in- 
ternal of the church, or, with respect to individuals, the internal man, and by 
earth the external of the church, or the external man. 

Two states of the church, — the church militant and the church triumphant, 

are usually recognised by divines ; all who are members of the church on 

earth constituting the former, and all who are enjoying the reward of victory 
in heaven, constituting the latter : thus the church militant is that which is 
usually called simply the church, and the church triumphant is but another 
name for heaven. Now it is certainly a very remarkable circumstance, that in 
so many languages the name for the state and habitation of the blest is the 
same as that for the visible heavens or shy: or rather, the name properly 
belonging to the latter is transferred to mean the former. In the English 
language indeed, which has two words that signify the expanse above or 
around the earth, we now more frequently apply the term heaven to the seats 
of the blest, and the term shy to the visible firmament ; though we still fre- 
quently use the former word in its primitive signification : 

■ As from the face of heaven the scattered clouds 
Tumultuous rove," 

and we are apt to transfer the latter to the figurative sense ; thus, the soul 

n Breathes hopes immortal, and affects the skies." 

Now whence came this application, by consent of nations, of the name of the 

visible heavens to express the invisible, but from a perception that they 

* Is. xi. 9. t Ver. *8, 19, 20. X Ver. 23. 



III.] APPENDIX. 



XXIX 



properly answer to each other by analogy, and that the lower heavens are a 
proper type and symbol of the higher? Hence in the Word of God, the one 
is constantly described by the name of the other. 

But further . As, in addition to the analogies of each taken separately, there 
is a similar relation between the visible heaven and earth as between the 
heavenly state, or the church in heaven, and the church on earth ; therefore, also, 
these are described by the combined phrase heaven and earth: As, likewise, 
there is a similar relation between the internal principles and heavenly graces 
constituent of a church and its external order, profession, and practice; and 
between all that belongs to the internal man and all that belongs to the ex- 
ternal ; therefore these, also, are included in the meaning of the phrase, heaven 
and earth. 

Of the use of the terms in these significations, abundant instances are 
afforded by the Scriptures. What else can be meant by these images, when 
the prophet says, " Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the shies pour 
down righteousness : let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, 
and let righteousness spring up together?"* It is perfectly evident that the 
heavens and shies, which pour down righteousness, and the earth which opens to 
receive it, and from which, in return, salvation and righteousness spring up, 
cannot be the visible heavens, and the material earth : neither can they be Sir 
Isaac Newton's " thrones and dignities " and " the inferior people :" but they 
must be the heavens the abodes of bliss, and the church rendered fruitful in 
good works by the divine influences thence descending: and the same lan- 
guage may be applied to the two principles of the human constitution re- 
cognised in theology by the names of the internal and external man. So 
when Jehovah, in reference to the establishment of the Christian dispensation, 
speaks of heaven and earth as being then to be created, and says, " I have put 
my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of my hand, 
that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say 
unto Zion, Thou art my peoplef : "and when he says again, " Behold, I create 
new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered nor come 
into mind: but be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create; for, be- 
hold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joyj :" who can fail to 
see, that the heavens, and new heavens, here spoken of, are the internal principles 
of the Christian church, and the earth and new earth, her corresponding ex- 
ternal? whence they are in both cases mentioned in connection with Zion and 
Jerusalem, the acknowledged types of the church ; and the creating of new 
heavens and a new earth is actually spoken of as synonymous with creating 
Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy. Equally easy will be the inter- 
pretation of these symbols, drawn from * the world natural," wherever they 
occur in the sacred writings ; understand by heaven, in relation to the church, 
or to the man of the church, the internal essence, and by the earth the external 
form, and you will obtain a satisfactory and coherent meaning for every pas- 
sage in which they are mentioned throughout the Word of God. 

III. If it be admitted that the earth signifies the external of the church and 
of man, it will easily be admitted that the lowest parts of the earth, with 
Hades or Hell, will signify the external man when entirely separated from the 
internal, so as to be the mere abode of infernal lusts and insane follies ; with 
the state of misery consequent thereupon hereafter: — and also, that it may 
* Isa. xlv. 8. f Isa. 1L 16. % Ch. lxv. 17, 18. 



XXX APPENDIX. [xo. 

sometimes signify a state of temptation, because then man appears to himself 
to be in danger of such a condition. In the former sense of the phrase, the 
Psalmist says, " But those that seek my soul to destroy it, shall go into the 
lower parts of the earth."* On account, also, of the manifest analogy, the term 
Hades or Hell, though originally signifying merely a subterraneous region, has 
been transferred to denote, in common use, the state and place of misery here- 
after; just as heaven, though originally signifying the visible firmament, has 
come to be regarded as the proper name of the state and place of eternal 
blessedness. But that sometimes the term is used for a state of extreme temp- 
tation, appears from the prayer of Jonah, all whose adventure with the fish 
was representative of such a state, and who says respecting it, " Out of the 
belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice."t 

IV. From the signification of the earth, and of the heaven and earth, as ex- 
pressive of the church, it necessarily follows, that great earthquakes, and the 
shaking of heaven and earth, are put for the shaking of churches, so as to de- 
tract and overthrow them, or at least to occasion a remarkable change in their 
state. Thus in the passage quoted above from the twenty-fourth of Isaiah, 
in which the earth so evidently signifies the church, it is said of it that its 
" foundations shake," and that it shall " reel to and fro like a drunkard." As 
no change in the state of the church ever occurred so great as that consequent 
upon the Lord's coming intothe world ; therefore, in reference to that event, 
it is written, " For thus saith the Lord of hosts : Yet once, it is a little while, 
and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land ; and 
I will shake all nations ; and the Desire of all nations shall come."J So, that 
a change in the constitution of the church not less extraordinary was once 
again to be experienced, seems to be intimated by the Revelator; when, after 
he heard " a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, 
It is done," he adds ; " And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings : 
and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon earth, 
so mighty an earthquake and so great:§" a most significant emblem, surely, of 
such a change as must attend such a consummation as alone is worthy to 
be indicated by the emphatic words heard from the throne of God, " It is 
done!" 

V. We have considered already the signification of the creating of a new 
heaven and a new earth, and, by consequence, of " the passing of an old one, or of 
the beginning and end (or rather end and beginning) of a world." If, as we have 
seen, the new heaven and new earth predicted by Isaiah describe the Christian 
church, which was to be a new dispensation both as to inward essence and 
outward form, of course, the former heaven and earth, which, it is declared, 
should no more be remembered nor come into mind, must be the corrupt in- 
ternal and ceremonial external of the Jewish church: and, as the Word of 
God must ever be consistent with itself, similar must be the import of these 
portentous symbols wherever they occur in its pages. Certain it is that this 
interpretation of them will everywhere yield a good and coherent sense. 

VI. Sir Isaac Newton, though he interprets the sun of " the whole species 
and race of kings," yet allows it occasionally to be Christ: and that it is a 
striking representative of the Divine Being is testified by the consent of the 
uumerous nations who have worshiped bim under this image. Accordingly, 
the Psalmist affirms that " the Lord God is a snn\\ :" so, Isaiah says of the re- 
* Ps. lsiil 9. t Ch, ii. 2. t Hag. 1L 6, 7. § Eev. xvi. 17, 18. | Ps. lxsxiv. 11. 



III.] APPENDIX. XXXI 

stored church, " Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon with- 
draw itself; for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light* :" and by Malachi, 
still more directly, the Lord declares, **■ But unto you that fear my name shall 
the Sun of Rigghteousness arise with healing in his wings."f Indeed, the 
analogy between the Lord as the source of life to all creation ; — of spiritual life, 
which consists in love and wisdom, immediately, to all intelligent creatures, — 
and of natural life, mediately, to inanimate and irrational subjects ; — and the 
sun as his vicegerent for the communication of its life to mere matter, by dis- 
pensing its beams of natural heat and light to this nether world ; is too obvious 
to escape the attention of any one. The analogy between the heat of the solar 
beams and the ardour of divine love, between the lucidity of the sun's rays and 
the illuminating efficacy of divine wisdom, are also most striking. It has been 
shewn in the third LectureJ, that there is an obvious and fixed relation be- 
tween fire and love, between light and truth; and this must eminently hold be- 
tween the solar fire and light, and the love and wisdom of the Lord. The sun 
also, as the secondary source of existence to its dependent worlds, cannot but, 
in the very nature of things, image forth in its properties the First Cause of 
existence, the Creator of itself and of all things. It cannot then be doubted, 
that in writings composed upon the principles of Analogy, the sun would often 
be taken as a symbol of the Lord j as we see is done in the passages above 
quoted. 

But it is not so much of the Divine Being, personally, that the sun is taken 
as an emblem in the Scriptures, as of the first essential property of the Divine 
Nature, which is the divine love; whence it is often coupled with the moon, and 
it is even said, as in the passage just cited from Isaiah, that the Lord will be 
both a sun and moon to his people; for the moon, as shining by a borrowed 
light, is the apt symbol of the principle of faith, which is produced in the mind 
by instruction in divine subjects outwardly communicated. There is also a 
distinction made in the Scriptures between the light of the moon, and the light 
of the sun. The light of the sun is a perception of divine truth grounded in 
love : it is that which is experienced by those whom the Lord calls his friends, 
or, as the original more strongly says, his lovers, and who become such by 
doing whatsoever he commands them§ : and of which he declares, that it consists 
in a knowledge, communicated by him, of all things that he hath heard from his 
Father]] : but the light of the moon is that of those whom the Lord calls ser- 
vants, whose faith, being not so much founded in love, is not attended with so 
clear an illumination of the understanding ; whence the same Authority says, 
that the servant Jcnoioeth net what his lord doeth.^ Hence the one state is called 
in the Scriptures a state of dag ; the other, respectively, a state of night, — not 
of a dark night, but of a night irradiated by the light of the -noon : thus we 
are called upon to praise " him that made great lights;~the sun to rule by dag, 
—the moon and stars to rule by night"** 

The stars, as noticed in the third Lectureft, are apt images of heavenly truths, 
or of specific matters of knowledge on spiritual subjects. 

That such is the signification, in Scripture, of the sun, moon, and stars, may 

sufficiently appear from this circumstance alone. John the Revelator beheld 

" a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her 

head a crown of twelve stars.^XX Now this woman is evidently the same as is 

* Ch. lx 20. t Ch. iv. 2. t Page 96. § John xv. 14. || Vcr. 15. 

T Ibid. ** Ps. exxxvi. 7, 8, 9. ft P. 109. 17 « Rev. xii. 1. 



xxxii APPENDIX. [no. 

elsewhere called " the bride, the Lamb's wife* ;" that is, she is the representa- 
tive of the true church ; wherefore also she is a personification of the new 
Jerusalem.^ The sun with which she appeared clothed, is a plain image of the 
divine love by which the true church is animated, encompassed, and protected. 
The moon under her feet, forming as it were her footstool, is a suitable image 
of that true faith upon which the church is represented in Scripture as founded: 
thus when Peter avowed his faith in the Son of God, the Divine Person who 
was the object of his belief said, " Upon this rock," — the great doctrine of faith 
just acknowledged, — " will I build my church."^ Because then the church is 
built upon a true faith in the Lord, her personified emblem was seen standing 
upon the moon, which is the symbol of such a faith. The crown of twelve stars 
upon her head, was expressive of the wisdom which results from the possession 
of all the truths of the Word; for the number twelve is always mentioned as 
implj-ing all the truths of the Word and of the church, both those relating to 
faith and those relating to charity ; which is the reason that there were twelve 
tribes of Israel, twelve apostles, that the new Jersalem had twelve foundations, 
and that this number, with its multiples, a hundred and forty-four, and twelve 
thousand and a hundred and forty-four thousand, is used on so very many oc- 
casions. The signification of this number, however, not being requisite to the 
present inquiry, we will not turn aside to consider it. 

But the sun and moon are sometimes mentioned, not as images of the Lord's 
divine love, and of a true faith, but of principles diametrically opposite; which 
is the reason why the light of the sun and moon is sometimes put in contrast 
with that of which the Lord is the author; as in the passage of which a part 
was before quoted from Isaiah: "The sun shall no more be thy light by day, 
neither for brightness shali the moon give light unto thee; but the Lord shall 
be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory." '§ Still they retain 
their general signification of love and faith, but denote different species of 
them: the sun is then that self-love which rules with those who reject the love 
of God, and the moon is that tissue of human inventions, which, in such a state, 
men miscall faith. In this sense they are spoken of as shedding evil influences, 
from which the objects of divine protection are to be secured : " The sun shall 
not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night ||;" — "They shall hunger no 
more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any 
heat."«[ 

VII. The signification of the sun, moon, and stars, in Scripture, and the 
ground of that signification in that positive Analogy which forms part of the 
laws of nature, must now, we would fain hope, appear very certain : and if so, 
the signification of t he darkening of the sun, turning of the moon into blood, and 
falling of the stars, must also be evident, and they must be seen to denote the 
ceasing in the professing church, or the perversion into their opposites, of pure 
love to the Lord, true faith in him, and all just knowledge of spiritual subjects. 
Thus we read in Joel, " I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, 
blood, fire, and pillars of smoke : the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the 
moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come."'** 
When was this prophecy fulfilled? Peter, at the first effusion of the Holy 
Spirit, after the Lord's ascension, affirms that it was accomplished then.'ff But 

* Ch. xxi. 9, Ch. xix. 7. f Ch. xxi. 2. t Matt. xvi. 18. 

§ Ch. lx. 19. See also Rev. xxi. 23. U Ps. cxxvi. 6. f Eev. vii. 16. 

** Ch. ii. 30, 31. ft See Acts ii. 1G to 20. 



in.] appendix. xxxiii 

what sun was then darkened, but the sun of love in the Jewish church; when 
a Divine Teacher said of them, " I know you, that ye have not the love of God 
in you*;" "and this is the condemnation ; that light is come into the world, 
and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were ewa7."f 
And what moon was then turned into blood, but the moon of true faith; when 
even the books of Moses were not believed by them in any beneficial manner ; 
whence the same infallible Authority says of them, " Had ye believed Moses, ye 
would have believed me; for he wrote of me: but if ye believe not his writings, 
how shall ye believe my words% ;" and they are further reproached, not only for 
departing from all true faith, but for setting up a false one in its place, "teach- 
ing for doctrines the commandments ofmen."§ So, when it is said that the tail 
of the dragon " drew the third part of the stars of heaven and cast them to the 
earth||," how striking an image is presented of the influence exercised by the 
evil upon the pure truths of heaven, which are deprived, by low interpretations, 
of their heavenly nature, and reduced to matters of common, earth-bom 
knowledge. 

We will conclude with a word respecting the application of these grand 
symbols to the downfal of particular nations ; as of Babylon^f, of Idumoea**, 
and of Egypt. ff In the truly spiritual sense, the signification will still be the 
same ; only then the nations also must be spiritually understood, as representa- 
tive of some general principle, or class of persons, connected with the church. 
Even in reference to the actual downfal of those states, as kingdoms of the 
" world politic," it would be very difficult to shew that the sun is the Icing, the 
moon the people, and the stars the great men; beside that they are thus reduced 
into tautological repetitions, the heavens and earth having before been ex- 
plained, by Sir Isaac, to signify princes and people. Even then with regard to 
" the kingdoms of the world politic," it would afford better sense to interpret 
the sun, moon, and stars, to be those principles in the state, which love and 
faith, with divine knowledge, are in the church; and these will be, justice and 
judgment, civil good and political wisdom, national integrity and sound maxims 
of state ; without the cultivation of an adequate share of which, the mightiest 
empires hasten to dissolution. 

But all applications of such symbols to natural objects or political affairs are 
attended with great uncertainty, and it can seldom be shewn that, with respect 
to these, they have a determinate signification : because these were not the 
things regarded in the Divine Mind, from which the Word proceeded. In 
giving a revelation, its Divine Author must have had eternal ends and spiritual 
objects in view: and if we explain, of spiritual objects, the natural images em- 
ployed in the divine style of writing, we may always, if we possess the proper 
key, obtain a meaning which is clear and satisfactory ; because between all 
natural objects and certain spiritual ones there exists by creation a fixed 
analogy, which may readily be traced, when we are sufficiently acquainted with 
the properties of each. How far this has been accomplished in this essay, in 
regard to the great objects and phenomena of the mundane system, it must be 
left to the reader to determine. 

* John v. 42. f Ch. iii. 19. t Ch. v. 46, 47. § Mark vii. 7. 

U Rev. xii. 3. i Isa. xiii. 10. ** Ch. xxxiv. 4. ft Ezek xxxii. 7, 



XXXIV APPENDIX. [NO. 



No. IV. (Page 201.) 

THE SIGNIFICATION OF THE CLOUDS, WHEN MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE, 
FURTHER ILLUSTRATED. 

The explanations of Scripture terms which are offered in this Work, heing new 
to most of our readers, would require, to do them justice, a more extended 
elucidation and defence than our limits will permit : However, if only one ex- 
planation, clearly drawn from a fixed analogy, is firmly established, it is suffi- 
cient to evince the solidity of the principle as a Rule of interpretation. We 
have dwelt at some length, in the Lecture above, on the signification of clouds, 
and have shewn, it is hoped, with some weight of evidence, that, when men- 
tioned in reference to the Lord, they signify the Divine Truth clothed with 
natural ideas and images, or the Word in its literal sense, which is the Divine 
Truth so clothed : and as this explanation, though, when first propounded, it 
may appear unexpected and forced, seems to become, on reflection, perfectly 
natural and easy, and to be capable of being established with a certainty which 
nothing but the extreme of scepticism can dispute; we will here dwell upon it 
a little further, and try what degree of light may be drawn, by its aid, from 
several obscure and obviously enigmatical passages of the Holy Word. We 
have selected this term for a detailed examination, not only because it is well 
calculated to illustrate what we have called the Science of Analogies, and to 
prove that in that Science must be sought the key for the true interpretation 
of the Scriptures, but because it is also eminently adapted to throw light upon 
the nature of the Scriptures themselves, — to evince that they consist of a glory 
and its covering, and to demonstrate that their literal sense Is actually a cloud 
which veils over the supernal light that beams within. 

I hope, however, that whoever reads this artcle, will first read the part of 
the Lecture to which it is appended (; from p. 193). 

I. It has been remarked above, that the signification of clouds, as being the 
Divine Truth veiled over with the appearances of nature, or the Word m its 
literal sense, may, when first announced, appear arbitrary and forced : yet if 
it thus appears to any one, it must be for want of his having noticed, that this 
is one of the analogies of which every one knows something-by common per- 
ception, and from which phrases are frequently borrowed in common discourse. 
I hope, for instance, that what I am now writing will not be deemed a cloudy 
composition ; for I well know how common it is with writers to cloud a clear 
subject by imperfect attempts at explanation. There are many things respect- 
ing which the truth discovers itself to the mind by its own inherent light, and 
which efforts to illustrate. only envelope in clouds. Such phrases as these, of 
which even' one immediately sees the meaning, and which ever}* one readily 
frames for himself, evince that the human mind intuitively perceives, not only 
the analogy between light and Truth in its clearness, but also that between 
clouds and Truth in the shade. It is only then in compliance with a principle 
which nature dictates to us all, that clouds are mentioned in Scripture as the 
chariot of God: for God, all acknowledge, must dwell in his own Divine 
Truth, and of Divine Truth, when shaded over with natural images and ex- 
pressions borrowed from human ideas, as in the literal sense of the Divine 
■Word, clouds are evidently the proper symbol. 



IV.] APPENDIX. XXXV 

II. It being certain then that reason gives a decided testimony in favour of 
the use of the term clouds as an appropriate emblem of the Word of God in its 
literal sense, we proceed to consider further, how this is corroborated by the 
instances in which the expression is used in the Scriptures in connection with 
the Lord. 

1. We have cited in the Lecture this passage of Moses: " There is none like 
unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in hi3 
excellency in the sky*;" where we have noted, that the word translated sky \b 
one which in many other places is rendered the clouds. Jeshurun is a name for 
Israel, which typically means the church, or the true member of the church ; 
and how is it that, in help of the member of the church, God rides in heaven, 
and in his excellency (greatness or strength) in the clouds ? how, unless these 
phrases mean, that he imparts to man instruction, consolation, and support, by 
the internal graces of his Word and kingdom, signified by heaven, communi- 
cated by means of the external or literal sense of his Word, signified by the 
clouds ? The reason of this is, because it is a fact, though not always reflected 
on and acknowledged, that whatever man receives to build him up as a 
member of the Lord's church, he receives, either immediately or remotely, by 
the medium of the Holy Word : it is hence that he obtains all his knowledge 
respecting the Lord and his kingdom, either drawing it thence himself or 
receiving it from others who have drawn it from that source : it is by the 
truths thus acquired that he directs his path : it is the promises which he 
hence learns that support him and enable him to resist his spiritual foes : and 
it is even by what he thus imbibes that the graces of charity, as well as those 
of faith, are infused into his bosom. For the Holy Word, though a system of 
Divine Truth, is not a system of truth alone. Every truth which it contains 
has some heavenly affection that properly belongs to it. When the truth is 
admitted into the understanding merely, still the affection is present and urgent 
to be received with it : so that although man is not conscious of it, it really is 
by the Holy Word, and not at all independently of it, that every heavenly 
grace of which he ever becomes a partaker enters his breast. The Word of 
God, both as to its internal spirit and life and external form and letter, is the 
grand medium by which the Lord imparts aid to his spiritual Jeshurun, his 
true church ; it is thus that he rideth upon the heaven to his help, and in his 
excellency on the clouds. If we suppose the visible heaven and vapoury 
clouds to be meant, what becomes of the sense of the passage? 

2. In the eighteenth Psalm we have a sublime description of the deliver- 
ance of the church, or of the member of the church, in the person of David, 
from a state of severe temptation ; and in the description of the interference of 
the Divine Being on the occasion occur these words: " He bowed the heavens 
also, and came down, and darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a 
cherub and did fly ; yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made 
darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and 
thick clouds of the skies: at the brightness that was before him his thick 
clouds passed : hail-stones and coals of fire."f To bow the heavens and come 
down, is a phrase expressive of the Lord's presence, with the interior things of 
his Divine Truth or Word, signified by the heavens, in its exteriors, to which 
the former come doion. The darkness under his feet is the Divine Truth in its 
lowest form, where the light of its eternal contents terminates in the cloud of 
* Dcut xxiiii. 26. t Vcr. 9 to 12. 



XXXVI APPENDIX. [NO. 

the letter : this appears as darkness to those who are in a state of opposition, 
and who can discern nothing of the light which shines through the letter from 
the pure truth within: — witness the reproaches cast upon the Word by Deists 
and Atheists, who would fain persuade the world that it is the most senseless 
and even pernicious book that ever was produced. A cherub is used in Scrip- 
ture as a personification of the Word in its letter : but to go into the proof of 
this would lead us too far from our immediate object. " He maketh darkness his 
secret place ; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and. thick clouds of 
the skies," — it is said in amplification of the same subject, and still relates to the 
investing of Divine Truth, in its ultimate form, with a clothing of appearances, 
within which, nevertheless, abides the Divine Presence. And when it is added, 
" At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed ; hail-stones 
and coals of fire," the allusion is, to the dispersion of the false notions which 
are often drawn from the literal sense of the Word not understood, by the 
manifestation of the Divine Truth contained within, which is called the bright* 
ness that was before him: hail-stones, being frozen drops of rain, which descend 
indeed from the clouds, but in a form which gives them a destructive instead 
of a fertilizing nature, are appropriate symbols of truths from the letter of the 
Holy Word falsified by perverse interpretations; and coals of fire are suitable 
emblems of the lusts or concupiscences of the natural man, especially of his 
lust of perverting and misrepresenting the Word by regarding it under the in- 
fluence of his evil inclinations. These are spoken of as sent forth by the Lord ; 
as is also the case when similar judgments are described in the account of the 
plagues of Egypt : yet we are certain that he cannot be the author of the per- 
versions of his Word by mankind : the meaning then is, not that such things 
actually proceed from him and his Word, but that their existence is discovered 
at his presence and at that of his Divine Truth ; and that when judgment is 
executed upon the wicked, they are left to their own false and evil imagina- 
tions, and to the misery which attends such a state. 

It may here be necessary to meet a difficulty which some minds may feel at 
this representation of tne Divine Truth, which we affirm to be the same as 
the Word, as enveloping the Divine Majesty. 

Whilst we think of the Word merely as a book, there certainly is some 
difficulty in conceiving how it can form " a pavilion " for the residence of the 
Majesty of heaven. It is easily seen by most persons, as soon as mentioned, 
that the most essential attributes of the Divine Nature are Love and Wisdom, 
Goodness and Truth. It is also readily apprehended, that every grace which 
can adorn the mind of man has reference to Love and Wisdom, Goodness and 
Truth, under some form or combination or other. Now it is allowed on all 
hands, that man can receive nothing, — nothing of a heavenly nature,— except 
it be given him from above: according to the Lord's own words, "Without 
me, ye can do nothing."* Yet it is also acknowledged by all, that God is in- 
finitely higher than man, or than the highest finite intelligence: how then can 
the heavenly graces of which he alone is the Author, be imparted from God to 
beings so much below him? how, but, correspondingly, as heat and light, the 
proper symbols of love and wisdom, are conveyed to the earth from the Sun 
of Nature, the best though faint image of the Sun of Righteousness ? that is, 
by a continual emanation of love and wisdom, goodness and truth, flowing 
from the Lord, as heat and light continually emanate from the sun. By such 

* John xv. 5. 






IV.] APPENDIX. XXXYii 

an emanation then, doubtless, they are communicated : and all tbat thus pro- 
ceeds from the Lord, whether it be regarded as reduced to writing or not, is 
called in Scripture the Word of God, and is represented by the light, terminat- 
ing at length in the clouds, with which, in the passage of the Psalms ex- 
amined in the Lecture, Jehovah is said to clothe himself as with a garment. 
Of course, it is not the written Word of which it is said, " By the Word of the 
Lord were the heavens made and all the host of them by the breath (or spirit) 
of his mouth* ;" and " All things were made by him (or it)."f Now this 
sphere of Divine Truth (, as we will continue to term it,) emanating from the 
Lord, when it comes within the confines of the world of nature, clothes itself, 
as is attempted to be shewn in the Lecture above J, with such ideas and images 
as we find in the literal sense of the written Word: nevertheless, it may 
easily be conceived of separately from the writings in which we possess it : 
it may be regarded as a chain of ideas occupying the minds of a certain class 
of intelligent beings ; or even as a sphere of perceptions, independently of any 
minds supposed to perceive them, surrounding the Godhead, but far beneath 
the seat of his immediate presence. But it is perfectly evident, that a chain or 
sphere of ideas of this kind might be reduced to writing without at all 
changing its nature : accordingly, this has been done in the written Word, 
which comprehends the sphere of Divine Truth, or the ideas with which it in- 
vests itself, when it comes within the precincts of nature, reduced, further, into 
natural language ; and the written Word thus presents, in its literal sense, the 
very Divine Truth rendered obvious to our senses under its lowest form or 
manifestation. 

Now although it may at first be difficult to conceive how the literal sense of 
the Word of God, as contained in a book, can afford, as stated in the passage 
we have just been considering, a pavilion for the Most High ; it is easy enough 
to apprehend how a sphere or emanation of Divine Truth, clothed with natural 
ideas, may be regarded under the image of such a pavilion: and yet we see 
also, that such a sphere of Divine Truth clothed with natural ideas might 
easily be reduced into writing ; that is, a book or writing might be framed 
which should convey the same ideas to the mind of its reader. Thus it is per- 
fectly evident, that all that is true of an emanation of Divine Truth clothed 
with ideas taken from the world of nature and from human perceptions, is 
equally true of the written Word in its literal sense : of this also, it may be 
said, in reference to its Author, that " his pavilion round about him were dark 
waters and thick clouds of the skies." Considered as a mere collection of words 
and letters, the Holy Word, as existing in a book, would indeed be nothing; 
but considered as to the ideas which those words in their literal sense convey 
to the mind of an intelligent being, the written Word is the same as the Divine 
Truth emanating from the Lord, and forming a sphere around him, when 
brought down to the apprehension of man regarded only as an inhabitant of 
the world of nature: and thus both the one and the other, — both the written 
Word in its letter and the sphere of Divine Truth in its extreme circumference, 
— are considered in Scripture as the clouds of heaven, — as the basis in which 
the pure Divine Truth terminates, and as the covering which shields from un- 
prepared minds its otherwise too dazzling glories. 

3. We will proceed to try the application of this interpretation of " the 
clouds " to another remarkable passage of the Psalms, which reads, "Ascribe 
* Ps. xxxiii. 6. t ^o\\a I 3. % P. 129. 



xxxviii APPENDIX. [no. 

ye strength unto God ; his excellency is over Israel, and his strength is in the 
c?owc?s."* Here, as every where else where clouds are mentioned in connexion 
with the Lord, the merely literal sense affords no intelligible meaning at all : 
for what sense would there be in saying that the strength of the Lord is in the 
clouds, if by the clouds were meant the mere unstable vapours that float over 
our heads. But understood in the spiritual signification of the term, as we 
have explained it, the meaning is most beautiful, and the symbol chosen to 
express it most appropriate. For it is in the lowest or most ultimate form of 
Divine Truth, which is what is meant by the clouds, that its strength prin- 
cipally resides ; provided, that is, it be not separated from its interior contents ; 
for. then it becomes like a body without a soul, which is a powerless carcase. 
It is known to all, that man's body is the covering of his soul, and that, though 
his soul is capable of existing without the body, it quits with the body all 
power of acting upon the solid substances of this world of nature : and so the 
Divine Truth, as seen in heavenly light, would be without the power of affect- 
ing the minds of men in this world of nature, were it not invested with its 
literal sense for that purpose : but in this it is clothed with all its fulness an' 1 
with all its power. Something similar obtains in human compositions and dis- 
courses. Every attentive observer of such subjects must have noticed, that the 
more the ideas which a speaker wishes to convey are clothed with natural 
images, provided the intended meaning is distinctly seen, the more strong do 
the language, and the sentiment too, appear. An orator who should address 
even a polished assembly in a chain of subtle reasoning, presenting none but 
abstract ideas expressed in the artificial language of philosophers, would make 
but little impression ; but he who should appeal to their natural feelings, in 
ideas taken from their common sentiments, and conveyed in language drawn 
from sensible images, would be esteemed a speaker of far greater power. In 
the same manner, the Word in its letter is always felt to possess great strength 
and power, if there be a perception at the same time of its genuine meaning; 
and the same truths conveyed in abstract terms are relatively unimpressive. 
Thus if we hear this sentiment, " The Lord at some period will reveal himself 
to the church by the discovery of the spiritual sense contained within the letter 
of his Word :" the sense intended is very clear, but it does not affect the mind 
with any strength : but if the sentiment be expressed in the language of the 
letter of the Word, " Then shall they see the Son. of man coming in a cloud 
with power and great glory ;" and it be at the same time seen that such is the 
real sense of these word ; they will then be attended by a perception of power 
as well as clearness ;— this portion of " the clouds " will be felt to possess 



Admitting then this interpretation of the symbol, as being expressive of the 
Word in its literal sense, it perhaps will be seen with what accurate propriety 
it is said of Jehovah, that " his strength is in the clouds." 

4. There is, moreover, one passage of the Psalms, in which this interpreta- 
tion of the clouds is given almost in express terms. Addressing the Lord, it is 
said, " Thy mercy is great above the heavens, and thy truth reacheth unto the 
clouds." f Is not this a plain affirmation, that the clouds are used for the 
lowest plane or basis in which the Divine Truth proceeding from the Lord ter- 
minates and closes ? and this, certainly, is in the literal sense of the written 
Word. 

* Ps. lxviii. 34. f Ps. cviii. 4. 



IV.] APPENDIX. XXxix 

5. This view of the subject will also enable us to see the reason why, on 
various most important occasions, divine revelations, or enunciations of most 
important divine truths, are said to have been made from clouds. 

The ten commandments were thus delivered at Mount Sinai. For that pur- 
pose " the Lord said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud*:" and 
accordingly " it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were 
thunders, and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of 
the trumpet exceeding loud."'t How beautiful and expressive was this, if a 
cloud is the symbol of the "Word in its letter, from and by which it is that God 
communicates his will to man ! 

The same remark may be applied to this parallel example. When Moses 
was afterwards called up into the mount to receive the tables on which the law 
was written, and to have further revelations communicated to him, the same 
symbol was repeated; "And Moses went up into the mount; and a cloud 
covered the mount: and the glory of the Lord abode upon mount Sinai, and 
the cloud covered it, six days : and the seventh day he called to Moses out oj 
the midst of the cloud?% 

So, because it is by the Word in its letter that all divine instruction is im- 
parted to man, it was customary for a cloud to appear over the mercy-seat: 
thus the Lord says to Moses, "Speak unto Aaron thy brother that he come not 
at all times into the holy place within the veil before the mercy-seat, that he 
die not : for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy-seat."§ And it was from 
over the mercy-seat, thus out of this cloud, that the Lord, after the tabernacle 
was erected, held his usual discourses with Moses: "Thou shalt put the mercy- 
seat above the ark, and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall 
give thee : and there I will meet thee, and will commune with thee from above 
the mercy- seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the 
testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the 
children of Israel." || How well the signification- of the ark accords with that 
of the cloud which commonly hovered over it, may appear from what is said 
on the former subject in the fifth Lecture. We have noticed above, that the 
cherubs also were personified emblems of the Divine Word in its letter. 

When, likewise, Moses had removed his tent or tabernacle out of the camp, 
on account of the idolatry of the Israelites in the affair of the golden calf, " it 
came to pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended, 
and stood at the door of the tabernacle; and the Lord," say our translators, 
" talked with Moses^[ :" but as the Lord is not mentioned in the original, it is 
actually affirmed that the cloudy pillar talked with Moses. 

A cloud being the emblem of the Word in the letter ; and it being by the 
Word, in which the Lord himself has an abode, that the Christian is guided in 
his spiritual journey; how beautifully and aptly was this represented in the 
journey of the Israelites through the wilderness ; when " the Lord went before 
them by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead them the way!"** As in his 
darkest states the Christian is still under the Divine Protection, and is led by 
the Divine Love when his perceptions of truth are most obscure : this was re- 
presented by the pillar of fire which guided the Israelites by night. 

We find the same symbol employed, to teach the same lesson, upon a most 
weighty occasion, in the Gospel. When Jesus was transfigured before the threo 

* Ex. xix. 9. f Ver. 16. % Ex. xxv. 15, 1G. § Lev. xvi. 2. 

U Ex. xxv. 21, 22. % Ch. xxxiii. 9. 17* ** Cli. xiii. 21, &c. 



Xl APPENDIX. [NO. 

disciples, " behold a bright cloud overshadowed them : and behold a voice out 
of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: 
hear ye him." * 

As, however, many of the images nsed in the Word, retaining their most 
general signification, often take two opposite specific ones ; so are clouds some- 
times used as emblems of darkness and ignorance ; of a state in which no light 
is seen from the letter of the Word, but false persuasions, adopted as true, ex- 
clude the light of heaven ; as when the prophets speak of " a day of darkness 
and gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness. "f 

Surely, on thus beholding how constantly the passages in which clouds are 
mentioned in connexion with the Lord, yield a lucid and instructive sense, 
when they are regarded as symbols of Divine Truth in its shade, or when it is 
veiled over by a covering of appearances, or, specifically, of the Word in its 
letter : it must be difficult to doubt that this is the true interpretation of the 
image. This signification is grounded, we have seen, in a clear and just 
analogy : and when we find that on its application to the clouds of the literal 
sense they in so many instances lose their obscurity, and become bright clouds 
translucent with the light of heaven; we surely have reason, not only to 
accept this as the true interpretation, but to admit also, that the principle on 
which it is founded affords the true key for decyphering the symbolic lan- 
guage of Holy Writ. Such perpetual coincidences could never originate in 
chance. 



No. V. (Page 241.) 

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE JEWISH CHARACTER; EVINCING ITS APTITUDE FOR 
A DISPENSATION CONSISTING CHIEFLY IN EXTERNAL RITES. 

It is affirmed in the text above, that the Israelites were selected to represent 
those spiritual things which they were incapable of inwardly perceiving and 
feeling ; and it is observed that their genius and temper were such as rendered 
them better adapted than any other people to this purpose; for they were 
distinguished by a remarkable tendency to multiply ceremonial observances, 
even beyond what was required of them, and to substitute these for the morals 
enjoined by the Law of God. Further to prove that this was really their 
character I have translated and abridged, from the Synagoga Judaica of 
Buxtorf, a number of examples of the manner in which they find, in almost 
every text of Scripture, an authority for some trifling ceremony or custom. 
These exhibit such marks of a gross and superficial turn of mind, as one would 
hardly suspect was to be found in the history of man : but idle and ridiculous 
as they are in themselves, they teach a lesson that is weighty and important, 
if they establish the view offered in the Lectures, of the purpose for which the 
Israelites were selected as a peculiar people : they also are not a little curious, 
a3 unfolding an extraordinary chapter in the great complex volume of human 
nature. Buxtorf every where gives as his authorities the Talmud and the 
Rabbins. 

* Matt. xvii. 5. \ Joel il. 2. 









V.] APPENDIX. Xli 

It was the practice, says the book Colbo, and in some places is so still, when 
a child first began to learn to read the Law, to give him some cakes made of 
honey and milk ; because it is written, " He made him to suck honey out of 
the rock:" [Deut. xxxii. 13:] and again, "Honey and milk are under thy 
tongue:*' [Cant. iv. 11 :] and the letters of his horn-book, also, were smeared 
over with honey, which he was to lick with bis tongue, because the Psalmist 
says, "How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to 
my mouth!" [Ps. cix. 103.]* — A truly devout Jew ought to rise before day- 
light, because David says " I will awake the morning;" [Ps. lvii. 9; — in our 
translation, " I will awake early ;"] that is, they say, " I awake the morning ; 
not, The morning awakes me." This is alleged to be necessary on account of 
the early prayers, which are to be offered at the rising of the sun, and not after 
it, because David teaches again, "They shall fear thee with the sun ;" [Ps. 
lxxii. 5;] that is, as they explain it, "They ought to praise thee, in their 
morning prayers, at the very rising of the sun."f (It is to be observed, that 
in this passage, as in many other instances, they adhere to the letter of the 
original in a manner that totally destroys its sense, which is here properly 
given in the English Version.)— They affirm, from Ps. lvi. 8, that there i3 
great efficacy in tears shed profusely ; and the book Reshith Chocmah states, 
that if the forehead be washed with tears, certain sins, which are written there, 
are blotted out ; and that this is referred to when it is written, " Set a mark 
upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry for all the abominations," &c. 
[Ezek. ix. 4.] J 

Their superstitious practices connected with their Tzitziih, called by our trans- 
lators (Matt, xxiii. 5) "the borders of their garments," being dangling ap- 
pendages to the corners, and their Tephillin or Phylacteries, which are little 
boxes, containing texts of Scripture, which they fasten on their forehead and 
arm; and which they found on Num. xv. 38, Deut. xxii. 12, ch. vi. 6, 8, and 
Ex. xiii. 9, 16; are too numerous to be recited: we will mention only one cir- 
cumstance. Beside the passages of Scripture put in the Tephillin or Phylac- 
teries, they represent on that which they fix on the forehead the letter GJ>, on 
the band which fastens it the letter *|, and on the thong which binds the othe r 
to the arm the letter \ Taken together, these letters make the word *>*Vy 
(JShaddai), which is one of the names of God; and thus they affirm is fulfilled, 
with all its advantages, the promise which says, " And all the people of the 
earth shall see that the name of tie Lord is called (or read) upon thee, and 
they shall be afraid of thee." [Deut. xxviii. 10.] § Ins'ead, however, of the 
women's wearing these phylacteries, or these talismans, (for such they consider 
them,) it is sufficient for them to say "Amen" to their husbands' prayers ; 
which, they allege, Isaiah teaches when he says, " Open ye the gates, that the 
righteous nation, which keepeth the truth, may enter in:" [Ch. xxvi. 2.] 
The Hebrew word for truth is Amen: hence they affirm, that to say, "the 
nation which keepeth the truth" is the same thing as to say, " they who ob- 
serve the Amen, who say Amen to every thing, who believe all that is said in 
the prayers, and respond Amen! Selah!"\\ 

Respecting their Synagogues and the mode of behaving in them, they have 

numerous precepts, consisting of similar applications of the words of Scripture 

to external things and performances. Their doctors teach that the synagogue 

should be built in the highest part of the town, because Solomon says that Wis- 

* Synag. Jud. Cap. vii. f Cap. viii. % Ibid. § Cap. ix. || Ibid. 



Xlii APPENDIX. [NO. 

dom " crieth in the head or crown of those who are tumultuous " \in prayer, 
as they interpret Prov. i. 21 :]. It ought therefore to be raised above all the 
houses in the place, according to the words of Ezra, " to exalt the bouse of our 
God." [Ch. ix. 9.]* — The worshipers ought to rush violently into it like soldiers 
who take a city by assault ; because David says, (as they understand him,) 
" We will walk into the house of God with noise and haste?' [Ps. lv. 14 :]— 
that is, they say, " as if dogs were set at us, and we felt them fastening their 
teeth in our hind quarters." They also ought to tremble and shake on enter- 
ing : for David says " Worship the Lord in the glory (or beauty) of holiness ; 
[Ps. xxix. 2;] where they direct us not to read mim (behadrath) "in 
glory," but rfnrO (bechardath) "in trembling '."f They are to recite the 
prayers which they call Shmon'esre, standing with both feet straight; because 
it is said of the living creatures in Ezekiel's vision, " And their feet were 
straight feet. v [Ez. i. 7.]J When they conclude their prayers, they are to 
leap three steps backward, bowing at the same time, and before they raise 
themselves up they sre to incline their head towards the left, because there is 
the right hand of God, before which, when they pray, they are to consider 
themselves as standing. Their wise men say that this is done in memory of a 
miracle which happened at Mount Sinai when God gave the people the law. 
On that occasion we read, that when " all the people saw the thunderings, and 
the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they 
removed, and stood afar offf [Ex. xx. 18 :] and the Rabbins affirm, that their 
terror was such, that in a single moment they fled away three miles.§ When 
they go out of the synagogue, they are to walk backwards; and the Talmudists 
prove the necessity of doing so by the contrary example of the wicked men 
seen by Ezekiel, " with their backs toward the temple of the Lord :" [Ch. viii. 
16 :] they are also to retire slowly, making very short steps ; for their steps are 
counted by God, and, if numerous, obtain a great reward; as it is written, 
" For thou numberest my steps? [Job xiv. 1 6.]|| 

He who prays at home must choose a convenient place, which must not be 
an elevated, but a low one ; that he may be able to say with David, " Out of 
the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord." [Ps. exxx. 1.] He must also 
shake and twist his body in all directions ; to fulfil the words, "All my bones 
shall say, Lord, who is like unto thee?" [Ps. xxxv. 10.]^[ 

The commandments which enjoined obedience to the law, they apply to the 
mere reading or hearing of it. Thus they say, that on a man's returning from 
morning prayers, before he goes out about his usual business, he must spend 
some time in reading the law; a commandment for which they find in Deut. 
vii. 12. The word which our translators have there rendered if, — " It 3hall 
come to pass, if ye hearken," &c — means, in its primary sense, the heel; where- 
fore the Jews prefer to read the passage thus : " The heel shall be, and ye shall 
hear ," the sense of which they say, is, " Before you lift up your heels to go 
out, you must read or hear something out of the Law :" The importance of 
this practice they illustrate by this strange perversion. While the first 
temple was standing, they state, the people practised at Jerusalem many evils, , 
indulged in heinous sins, committed all kinds of incest, and defiled themselves 
with the vilest idolatry: all this God passed over, taking no notice of it till 
they neglected the study of the Law ; but then he destroyed or dispersed the 
people, and levelled the temple with the ground: according to his words in 
* Cap. x. t IbiJ. % Ibid. § Ibid. || Ibid. % Ibid. 



T.J APPENDIX. iliii 

Jeremiah: "Wherefore is the land perished, and is like the burnt up wilder- 
ness? Because they have forsaken my Law, which I set before them.'' 
[Ch. is. 12, 18.]* 

Various trifling ceremonies are to be observed on sitting down to the table, 
and blessing the bread. So, in blessing the wine, the cup is first to be lifted up 
with both hands, because David says, " Lift up your hands in holiness and 
bless the Lord." [Ps. cxxxiv. 2.] It is afterwards to be held in the right 
hand alone, but if too heavy, the right hand may be supported by the left : 
because it is written, in the singular number, " / will lift up the cup of salva- 
tion, and call upon the name of the Lord/' [Ps. cxvi. 13. ]t — Salt is by all 
means to be put on the table, because they compare the dining table to the 
ancient altar and the food which was offered upon it ; respecting which it is 
said, "Every oblation of thy meat-offering shalt thou season with so.lt:'' 
[Lev. ii. 13;] hence their wise ones say, u If there be salt on the table in 
which to dip the consecrated bread, the table becomes an altar of expiation, 
and a protection against punishment. 1 ' When they give thanks, they cut 
deeply into the loaf, but take care not quite to divide it ; because, as they 
choose to understand Ps. x. 3, it is written, "The wicked boasteth of bis 
heart's desire ; and he that cutteth through when he giveth thanks, irritateth 
the Lord."* 

Their synagogue-copies of the Law are fastened to wooden rollers, elegantly 
ornamented, by which alone they are to be carried or touched. These they 
call the tree of life, the same word in Hebrew signifying both a tree and a 
piece of wood ; and they give this name to the handles of the books, because 
Soloman has said, " Wisdom is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her." 
[Prov. iii. 18.]§ 

They deesi it necessary to celebrate the Sabbath with much festivity, and 
particularly to have three sumptuous meals, one on the Friday evening when 
the Sabbath begins, another at the Saturday noon, and the third in the even- 
ing. They find this prescribed by Moses, when, speaking of the manna to be 
eaten on the sabbath, he says, " Eat that to-day: for to-day is a sabbath unto 
the Lord: to-day ye shall not find it in the field:"' [Ex. xvi. 25 :] where, be- 
cause to-day is repeated three times, Moses, they say, meant to intimatr 
they should have, on the sabbath, three regular feasts. They are also : 
the best clothes they can afford to purchase. It is written of the sabbatl), 
"Thou shalt honour it;" [Is. lviii. 13:] How is it to be honoured? The 
Talmud answers, "By not suffering your sabbath-day garment to be like your 
common garment."' At dinner, the bread is first laid upon the table-cloth, and 
then covered with a napkin, in memory of the manna; for, in t:::- 
the dew fell first, then the manna, and then dew again, so that the manna lay 
in the midst of the dew, just as if it were between two cloths : therefore the 
bread should be laid upon one cloth and be covered with another. I 
sa m e reason, the devout housewives make pies containing meat between two 
layers of dough. They prove that genial indulgences are to be practised on 
the sabbath from various texts, and among others from one in which none but 
a Jew could discover such a meaning. The whole verse of Isaiah before cited 
is this : * If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure 
on my holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honour- 
able, and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own 
• Cap. si. f Cap. xii. % Ibid. § Cap. xiv. 



xllV APPENDIX. [NO. 

pleasure, nor speaking thine own words ; then," &c. Here the words, " call 
the sabbath a delight" mean, they affirm, that the sabbath is to befitted with all 
hinds of delights. Many of the Rabbins have given similar precepts, supported 
by similar applications of texts of Scripture : we will conclude with one by 
Rabbi Judab, who received it, he says from the still older sage, Rabh : " Who- 
ever spends the sabbath merrily, shall obtain from God the petitions of his 
heart: as it is written, * Delight thyself in the Lord, and he shall give thee the 
desires of thy heart.' " [Ps. xxxvii. 4.]* 

Respecting the feast of unleavened bread, this injunction is given in Exodus: 
"Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days; and there shall no leavened 
bread be seen with thee, neither shall there be leaven seen with thee in all thy 
garters." [Ch. xiii. 7.] This they have made the ground of various prac- 
tices, the most remarkable of which is, a formal search, on the night but one 
before the passover, by the master of the family, assisted by his male servants 
and children, all with wax candles in their hands, into every corner of the 
house, in quest of leaven. Supposing such a regular search to be intended by 
the commandment, why conduct it by candle light ? Because it is written in 
Zephaniah, " I will search Jerusalem with candles:' [Ch. i. 12.]f — At the feast 
of Pentecost, in memory of the Law received at that time, they strew the floors 
of their houses, synagogues, and streets, with grass, put green boughs, roses, 
and other flowers in their windows, and wear green chaplets on their heads. 
What has this to do with the giving of the Law ? They answer, The pastures 
were green at the time when Moses went up into the mountain; for it is 
written, "Let not the flocks nor herds feed before that mountain." [Ex. 
xxxiv. 3.] J 

At the day of Atonement they light up candles in the synagogues, one for 
every man who belongs to it : for it is written, " Glorify ye the Lord in the 
fires;" [Is. xxiv. 14:] which they read, " Glorify the Lord with lights" But 
why light them up for the men only? Take here a specimen of the ingenuity 
of the Cabbalists, and of the kind of mysteries which they find in the Divine 
Word. The letters of the word 1,3 (Ner), which signifies a candle, stand for 
the number 250. Now it is a received opinion with the Jews, that the mem- 
bers of a man's body are in number two hundred and forty-eight; to which if 
you add two, for his soul and spirit, you have the number 250: the word 13 
(JVer) therefore, whose letters make that number, stands for a man as well as a 
candle. But a woman, according to their system of physics, has four members 
more than a man ; so she cannot be resolved into a Ner or candle. Very pious 
persons often light up two wax candles, one for the body and one for the souk 
and call the latter, which is the largest, the candle of the soul. As also the 
soul is called a candle by Solomon, [Prov. xx. 27,] they say that to light up a 
candle for it, makes an atonement for the soul.§ 

Respecting the mode of slaughtering and cutting up animals for food, they 
have invented so many rules, that the art of the butcher forms with them one 
of the learned professions, and is not allowed to be practiced without authority 
from the Rabbins, conveyed by a regular diploma. No sanction is alleged for 
their fancies from the Scriptures, but the following passage : " If the place 
which the Lord thy God hath chosen to put his name there be too far from 
thee, then thou shaft kill of thy herd and of thy flock, which the Lord hath 
given thee, as I have commanded thee, and thou shalt eat in thy gates what- 
* Cap. xv. f Cap. xvii. t Cap. xx. Cap. xxv. 



V.] APPENDIX. Xlv 

soever thy soul lusteth after." [Deut. xii. 21.] Now as no directions are any 
where given respecting the mode of killing animals, they affirm that the words, 
" as I have commanded thee," (though it is not the Lord who is here the 
speaker, but Moses,) mean, " as I commanded thee orally in Mount Sinai :" the 
specific directions therefore are not to be sought in the Written, but in the Oral 
Law, that is, in their traditions; from which source they draw them in great 
abundance, and have composed bulky treatises on the subject.* 

Of the numerous observances with which their weddings are solemnized, we 
will mention but one. The bride is led three times round the bridegroom, be- 
cause it is written, " A woman shall compass a man." [Jer. xxxi. 22. ]f 

The relatives who attend the funeral of a person deceased, when they return, 
are to sit bare footed on the ground for seven days, neither eating meat nor 
drinking wine, but exhibiting the utmost wretchedness; and for thirty days 
they are to wear mournful and squalid apparel, neither washing themselves nor 
any of their clothes. Nothing about the duration of mourning is said in their 
Law ; but they find it clearly defined there notwithstanding. It is written in 
Amos, "I will turn your feasts into mourning:" [Ch. viii. 10:] hence they 
conclude, as the duration of a festival was seven days, that the duration of the 
deepest mourning must be the same. But the thirty-days neglect of their per- 
sons, a part of which consists in not combing or dressing their hair, depends 
for its sanction on Cabbalistic ingenuity. Aaron and his two remaining sons, 
when his two eldest were struck dead, were commanded " not to uncover their 
heads" [Lev. x. 6;] that is, the Rabbins say, not to clip their hair, but to 
let it grow. But how does this point to the number of thirty days ? Because 
the Nazarite was also commanded to let his hair grow, and prohibited from 
clipping it, all the days of his vow; [Num. vi. 5;] and this was a period of 
thirty days. How do they gather this, when still the number is not men- 
tioned? From its being added, [ver. 8,] "All the days of his separation, he 
shall be holy to the Lord ;" where the concluding word nTP, when its letters 
are reckoned as numerals, makes the number 30. By plain consequence, then, 
the days of separation were thirty ; and by a consequence equally plain, the 
same should be the days of mourning! J 

Some apology may seem requisite for detaining the reader so long among 
such a wilderness of absurdities ; which, however, cannot fail to afford him some 
amusement : but when the object was, to establish a tendency to ceremonial 
observances as belonging to the national character of the Jews, it was neces- 
sary to produce more than a few instances, which might be regarded as isolated 
and accidental. Enow, surely, have now been given, fully to prove our posi- 
tion : Buxtorf furnishes a great number more. How striking a comment do 
they afford upon the Lord's words ; " Laying aside the commandment of God, 
ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups ; and many 
other such like things ye do !" But, as observed in the Lecture, " this disposi- 
tion of that people to neglect essentials and to cleave to formalities, if it dis- 
qualified them from constituting an interior church themselves, eminently 
adapted them to be made the representatives of such a church, and to have 
their affairs overruled, so as to be subservient to such representation." And 
surely the indubitable fact, that such was their distinguishing genius, affords, 
by itself, an argument of no inconsiderable weight, that the designs of Provi- 
dence in selecting them from all other nations, were purely those which we 
* Cap. xxxvi. t Cap. xxxix. J Cap. xlix. 



Xlvi APPENDIX. [NO. 

Lave endeavoured in this Lecture to develope, and were not connected with 
any partial favour to them, but solely regarded the general benefit of all future 
generations of mankind. 



No. VI. (Page 270.) 

CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF JEPHTHAH'S VOW. 
Judges xi. 31. 

As some modern writers have thought thej' have succeeded in clearly establish- 
ing the more pleasing view of the fate of Jephthah's daughter from the very 
words of the vow; and I have nevertheless stated, that I think that the most 
unforced inference from the language of the original, and from the history in 
general, is, that the sacrifice took place ; it seems necessary to give a view of 
the progress and present state of opinion upon the subject, and critically to 
examine the various renderings which have been proposed. 

Four different senses, in ages distant from each other, have been given to the 
words of the Hebrew original. 

1. The first is this: " Whosoever cometh out of the doors of my house to 
meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Amnion, shall be the 
Lord's, and I will offer him up for a burnt-offering." 

2. The second is that adopted in the text of the common English Bible: 
" Whatsoever cometh out of the doors of my house, &c. — shall be the Lord's, 
and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering." 

3. The third is that given in the margin of the English Bible: "What- 
soever cometh out of the doors of my house, &c. — shall be the Lord's, or I 
will offer it up for a burnt-offering." 

4. The fourth was proposed about sixty years ago by Dr. Randolph, and is 
this: "Whosoever cometh out from the doors of my house, &c. — shall be 
the Lord's; and I will offer (to) Him [naniehy, the Lord,] a burnt-offering." 

These shall be called, in the following remarks, the first second, third, and 
fourth renderings or translations. 

I. How the transaction was understood by the Jews while Hebrew was their 
vernacular language, it is impossible to determine; but certain it is, that, in 
the most remote period to which our means of ascertaining their sentiments 
extend, they understood the vow in the first of the above senses : they be- 
lieved that a human sacrifice was intended by Jephthah from the beginning, 
and that his daughter was actually put to death. Thus the Greek version 
commonly called that of the Septuagint, which was made by the Jews between 
two and three hundred years before the Christian era, gives the pronouns in 
the masculine gender: o (Kiropeuo^vos os av e^e\8r] cktuu dvpwv rov qikov fxov, 
— €stci rov Kvpiov, kcu avoicw avrou o\oKaviwfj.a: of which the first render- 
ing given above is an exact translation in English. With this, also, the 
Latin Vulgate, supposed to have been made from the Septuagint in the first 
century, and corrected by Jerome from the Hebrew in the fourth, completely 
coincides. 

Josephus, the next ancient Jewish testimony, gives a sense agreeable to our 



VI.] APPENDIX. Xlvii 

second rendering, or that of the text of the English Bible: he makes 
Jephthah promise " to offer in sacrifice what living creature soever should first 
meet him," and he affirms that the vow, in that sense, was executed by him ; 
" he sacrificed his daughter as a burnt-offering, offering such an oblation as 
was neither conformable to the law nor acceptable to God."* The same sense 
is given in the Targum, or Chaldee Paraphrase, which was written later. One 
or the other of these two renderings, was received, for many ages, by all who 
read the Scriptures, both Jews and Christians. 

The celebrated Rabbi, David Kimchi, who flourished in the twelfth century, 
seems to have been the first who proposed the third translation, or that 
given in the margin of the English Bible. This has been since adopted by 
many commentators and translators: and the discussions on the subject were 
for a long time confined to the question, which of the two renderings, (our 
second and third,') should be preferred. The arguments pro and con, may be 
£een at large in Poole's Synopsis, and in many other works: but as a specimen 
of the nature of the discussions which are included in this inquiry, and as a re- 
markable instance of the great obscurity which hangs over the whole question, 
we give some observations of Noldius on the subject. 

This learned writer, in bis Concordantice Particularum Ebrao-Chaldaica- 
rum, among the instances in which the Hebrew particle 1, which commonly 
signifies and, bears the sense of or, adduces this vow of Jephthah : on 
which he adds this note. Kimchi in hoc loco, &c. — "Kimchi on the place, 
and in his Michlol, says, n*m &c — It shall be sacred to Jehovah, if it be not 
lit for sacrifice ; or / will offer it as a sacrifice, if it be jit for sacrifice. This is 
a right distinction : for many things might be consecrated to God, (Lev. xxvii. 
2 to 9, 11, 14, 16 ;) but only these five might be sacrificed; viz. oxen, sheep, 
goats, doves, and pigeons. (Lev. i. 2, 10, 14.) The meaning then is, that the 
daughter of Jephthah, as she could not lawfully be sacrificed, was consecrated to 
the peculiar worship of God.— -Whether or not she was put to death, is, how- 
ever, a question of great difficulty. Capellus, in his Diatribe on Jephthah's 
vow, contends for the affirmative: because it is said, (Lev. xxvii. 29,) 
"Every thing devoted (Cherem) shall surely be put to death :" from which he 
gathers, because (ver. 28) men, as well as other things in our power are 
mentioned as liable to be devoted by Cherem, that children might lawfully be 
devoted and put to death by their parents, and servants by their masters. A 
harsh and unreasonable assertion ! nor is it much softened by Hachspan and 
Maimonides, who only allow this right to be possessed by the Israelites over 
their Canaanitish slaves. For though the servitude of these was perpetual, 
and they were not, like Hebrew servants, to be emancipated in the seventh 
year or in the year of jubilee ; yet they were under the common protection of 
the laws, which provided that they should not be ill-treated, (Ex. xxii. 21, 
and xxiii. 9, Lev. xix. 33, Deut. x. 19, Zech. vii. 10;) and even pronounced 
a curse against those who should oppress them: (Deut. xxvii. 19; comp. 
Mai. iii. 5, and Num. xv. 16, 29:) hence the Jews could not assume over 
them, much less over their own children, the right of life and death : and the 
Scriptures afford no example of their doing so. As to the passage, Lev. xxvii. 
28, 29, by which Capellus defends his opinion, Maimonides rightly distin- 
guishes between the Cherem of God and the Cherem of the priests, (Num. 
xviii. 14,) which Leusden more clearly designates as the destructive and the 
* Ant. B. v. Ch, vii. § 10. 



xlviii APPENDIX; [NO. 

common Cherem. The former hind includes such things as were either to be 
put to death in honour of God, as clean animals for sacrifice, (Lev. xxvii. 28,) 
or to be destroyed as abominable, (Num. xxi. 2, 3 ; Deut. vii. 26 ; ■ Jos. vi. 7, 
18, and vii. 12, 13 ; 1 Sam. xv. 3 ; 1 Ks. xx. 42 ; Is. xxxiv. 5 & 43 ; Zech. 
xiy. 11 ; Mai. iv. 6 ; Ezr. x. 18 : This is called Anathema, Rom. ix. 3 ; 1 Cor, 
xii. 3; Rev. xxii. 3.) The latter hind includes whatever was destined to 
sacred uses, never more to return to its former owner, (Lev. xxvii. 28 ; Num. 
xviii. 4; 1 Sam. ii. &c.) It is in vain that Capellus adduces the words, 
Every Cherem, [Lev. xxvii. 29,] to support his opinion ; what is meant is, 
Evert destructive Cherem. Thus it is said [Num. xviii. 14,] " Every 
Cherem shall be given to the priests ;" and yet that which was killed must be 
excepted; viz. that which was anathema, — the hostile and the sacrificial 
Cherem, &c. — for this, being taken out of existence, cannot be said to be given 
to the priests.* Universal propositions are not always absolute, but the 
subject must always be such as suits the predicate. The execution of Jeph- 
thah's vow was postponed for two months : and who can believe, in all this 
time, even if the people did not interfere, as they did in the similar cases of 
Saul and Jonathan; (1 Sam. xiv. 44, 35;) that the priests would not have 
prevented the perpetration of such a parricide? which they might have done 
by a simple statement of the law upon the subject." Having offered these 
arguments, with so much appearance of conviction, against the idea of the ex- 
ecution, our learned author here pauses, and then proceeds thus : " These were 
our first thoughts upon this question; but upon re-examining them, I am 
almost brought to follow the reasons advanced on the other side, and to ac- 
knowledge the actual immolation. For beside that this is steadily affirmed by 
so many Fathers, Rabbins, and Divines ; I do not see how Jephthah, who was 
a pious and prudent man, could have been so deeply moved (ver. 35,) for the 
mere consecration of his daughter to the service of God, if she was to suffer 
nothing worse. But further : we never read of any such custom among the 
Jews, as that of vowing perpetual virginity: on the contrary, to be childless 
was esteemed by them a reproach (1 Sam. i. 10, 11, Luke i. 25,) wherefore 
this was what the daughter of Jephthah lamented (ver. 37). Nor do we read 
that females ever undertook the Nazariteship ; and yet even the Nazarites were 
not restricted to celibacy f; as may be seen in the cases of Samson and 
Samuel, [who were dedicated to God from their birth.] Finally, the long 
continued custom of an annual assembly and lamentation of the virgins in all 
Israel, seems to demand more serious origin than a young woman's remaining 
unmarried. And suppose Jephthah's wife, or some other married person of his 
family, had come out to meet him ; how would the devotion to celibacy then 
have taken place? Such instances of living single for a pious purpose as are 
mentioned Luke ii. 37 and 1 Cor. vii. 5, were either not enforced by a vow, or 
were for a time only : but we no where read of vows of virginity ; much less 
of parents making such vows for their children. And the separation of 
David's concubines (2 Sam. xx. 3,) was not made in pursuance of any vow, 

* These two kinds of Cherem are better illustrated iu Dr. Randolph's discussion on the 
subject. 

f This argument is met by Dr. Randolph with an observation which is certainly of con- 
siderable weight : He remarks, that devotemcnt of females, differently from that of males, 
must have included abstinence from marriage, because the latter engagement would abro- 
gate the former, and the domestic duties of the wife and mother would be incompatible with 
h constant attendance on the sanctuary. 



VI.] APPENDIX. Xlix 

but on account of the incest by which they had been defiled, and independently 
of their own will ; whereas all vows must be free. From all which it will 
follow, that Jephthah's daughter was sacrificed." 

These are the reasons which led Noldius to relinquish his first sentiments : 
but whoever wishes to see a very strong defence of the opinion that Jeph- 
thah's daughter was actually immolated, by a recent author, should consult 
the celebrated Michaelis's Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, by Dr. Smith, 
vol. ii. p. 276 to 279 and 286 to 290. For the best modern defence of the 
contrary opinion, see Dr. Randolph's Sermon, entitled Jephthah's Vow Con- 
sidered : in which he proposes our fourth translation : which we are now 
to notice. 

Dr. Randolph makes Jephthah's vow to include two things ; first, the con- 
secration to the peculiar service of the Lord of some person ; and, secondly, 
the offering to Him, as a burnt-sacrifice, of some clean animal. The foundation 
of his translation is a remark of Buxtorf 's in his Thesau. Gram. L. ii. c. 17; 
where, having explained the construction of the Verb with the affixed Pro- 
noun, he adds, Denique, &c. " This construction often gives rise to a con- 
tracted and elliptical form of speech ; the affixed pronoun serving instead of a 
dative, accusative, or ablative, with a preposition prefixed." Dr. Randolph 
therefore supposes the affix, in, which is joined to the verb of offering, 
CirVfi^tf m) to be here used instead of the regular pronoun and preposition i 1 ?, 
and construes it accordingly as a dative, referring it, as its antecedent, to 
Jehovah, not to whatsoever or whosoever; which gives the sense stated above. 
This thought so pleased Bishop Lowth, that, in his Isaiah, he speaks of it 
thus: "A late happy application of this grammatical remark to that much 
disputed passage, has perfectly cleared up this difficulty, which for two 
thousand years had puzzled all the translators and expositors, had given oc- 
casion to dissertations without number, and caused endless disputes among the 
learned, on the question, whether Jephthah sacrificed his daughter, or not : in 
which both parties have beeen equally ignorant of the meaning of the place, of 
the state of the fact, and of the very terms of the vow : which now at last has 
been cleared up beyond all doubt by my very learned friend Dr. Randolph, 
Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford, in his Sermon*," &c. 

II. Such being the history of the four renderings, what is the present state 
of opinion on the subject? 

After such a commendation, by such a judge, in a book so well known, of 
Dr. Randolph's explanation: and after this had been adopted also in another 
well known work, Parkhurst's Heb. Lexicon ; one would have expected to find 
it received into all later comments on the Scriptures published in this country ; 
yet this is far from being the fact. Even Home, who, in the Appendix to the 
first Volume of his " Introduction," offers short answers to the principal infidel 
objections, though he mentions Dr. Randolph's Sermon in a note, takes no 
notice of his solution of the difficulty, but gives an extract from Dr. Hales, who 
follows the third interpretation ; being one of those which are so contemptu- 
ously spoken of by Dr. Lowth. Among the modern British annotators on the 
Bible, D'Oyley and Mant, Brown (last edition by Raffles,) and Reeve, also ad- 
vocate the third rendering. Scott honestly rejects this as not supported by the 
natural meaning of the words, and strenuously contends for the second render- 
ing and the actual sacrifice. Dr. A. Clarke, after appearing to favour the third t 
* Note on Ch. xlii. IG. 



1 APPENDIX. [NO. 

abides, without naming Dr. Randolph) by his, or the fourth translation: but 
as he gives it, it is adapted to have but little weight; since he does not notice 
the grammatical argument afforded by Buxtorf, which is its chief support; 
and, provided the Hebrew pronoun may be translated by the English him, he 
seems to think it of no consequence, whether that him answer to a dative or an 
accusative. Indeed, he here exhibits a strange hallucination, but little in ac- 
cordance with the high attainments in Biblical literature, for which some give 
him credit.* Randolph's, or our fourth rendering, is expressly given by Hew- 
lett alone. What is remarkable enough, D'Oyley and Mant give the practical 
reflections with which Randolph concludes his sermon, but take no notice of 
his explanation. Altogether, it is evident, either that Dr. Randolph's view is 
hitherto but very partially known, or that it has met with but very partial 
approbation : I have not, however, seen any thing urged expressly against it. 

III. Having stated the four renderings, their history, and the present state 
of opinion respecting them, we will give a brief estimate of the probability of 
each, as favoured or otherwise by the grammatical construction of the vow, 
and by the thoughts which Jephthah must have bad in his mind when he 
uttered it. 

The first and most ancient rendering, or that of the Septuagint and the 
Vulgate, which gives it, " Whosoever cometh out of the doors of my house, 
&c. — shall be the Lord's and I will offer him up for a burnt offering;" is liable 
to no grammatical objection whatever, but is that which the words, if they 
alone be considered, most naturally present: yet as it is attended with the in- 
surmountable objection of supposing that Jephthah had a human sacrifice in 
his thoughts when he made the vow, it has now, I believe, no advocates : it 
found one, however, not much more than a century ago, in Seb. Schmidt, who, 
in his Latin Translation of the Bible, gives the passage thus : " Exiens, qui 
exibit extra januas domus rnese, &c. — erit Jehovae, et offeram illum (in) holo- 
caustum." 

The second rendering, which may be called that of the translators of the 
English Bible, being adopted by them in their text, — " Whatsoever cometh 
forth of the doors of my house, &c. — shall be the Lord's, and I will offer it for 
a burnt offering;" is in like manner liable to no grammatical objection: but it 
supposes Jephthah 's thoughts, when he made the vow, to have been such as it 
was scarcely possible that they could have been. It makes him intend to offer 
in sacrifice the first living creature that came out of his house to meet him 
when he returned in peace from the children of Ammon : but what living crea- 
ture could he conceive most likely to come to congratulate him on his victory ? 
a human being or an animal? Could he have thought of any but a human 
being? and, among human beings, who so likely as the one he best loved? 
Or if, by some strange fatality, this never entered his head, could he think it 
probable that any animal that could be lawfully sacrificed would come forth to 
him ? Had he a sheep, a goat, or an ox, so tame, attached, and intelligent, as 
to run to fawn upon him with joy on his return? As has been remarked by 
others, the only animal likely to do this, would be a dog : but this was an 
animal that could not be offered in sacrifice. 

* He supposes that, instead of the affix in. it; might originally have been K1H : — that &, 
the nominative instead of the accusative! But for this, he says, there is no absolute need, 
"because the pronoun n» in the above verse, may with as much propriety be translated 
him, as it." True: but {OH, understood of a person, must be translated he! 






VI.] 



APPENDIX. H 



The THIRD rendering, or that of Kimchi, — " Whatsoever corneth forth of 
the doors of my house, &c. — shall be the Lord's, or I will offer it for a burnt- 
offering ;" is liable to a very important grammatical objection. It is certain 
that the particle ) is never nsed to disjoin things so completely as this trans- 
lation supposes. It might, indeed, easily be shewn, that the particle always 
retains its proper meaning as a copulative; and that, even when used disjunc- 
tively, it still connects the words to which it is joined with some common 
affirmation ; quite the contrary of which would be the case if it were used dis- 
junctively here. (See Gusset. Coram. Ling. Ebr.y Most critics have therefore 
felt that this rendering is extremely forced an! harsh, and bave only acquiesced 
in it to get rid of what they esteemed a greater difficulty. It also makes the 
second clause of the vow entirely unnecessary ; for if Jephthah meant to say, 
that whatsoever came out of his house should be consecrated to the Lord in 
such manner as was suitable to its nature, this is fully conveyed in the first 
clause ; and the addition of the second, separated from the former by 
an or, instead of helping to determine his meaning, is of no use but to 
perplex it. 

Finally, the fourth, or Dr. Randolph's rendering, "Whosoever corneth 
out of the doors of my house, &c. — shall be the Lord's, and I will offer (to) 
him a burnt-offering;" seems to come within the rules of grammar, and it sup- 
poses nothing that must necessarily have been foreign to Jephthah's thoughts: 
it meets the expectation he must naturally have had, that a human being 
would be the first to come to meet him; and when he resolved to consecrate 
that person to the Lord, it is not unlikely that he should propose to accompany 
the ceremony with a burnt-sacrifice. Dr. R.'s version is, nevertheless, attended 
with considerable difficulties ; and as I have nowhere seen any critical remarks 
upon it, I will offer the following. 

Although Dr. R.'s translation appears to be justified by the usage of the 
sacred writers, it certainly does not follow their common usage; nor, though 
probably the true rendering, is it one which any Hebraist would have thought 
of, if not driven, by the necessity of the ease, to seek for a meaning different 
from that first presented by the words. He, accordingly, candidly acknow- 
ledges that it is not without difficulties; and he chiefly relies upon moral 
considerations for its support. These, of course, lend equal support to the 
third or Kimchi's rendering, and are much the same as the advocates of that 
rendering usually offer: but against that, the grammatical objections are so 
great, that (for this reason, I suppose,) Dr. R. has thought it unworthy of the 
least notice. For his own, he offers, in addition to his moral arguments, two 
philological ones; the value of which I will endeavour to estimate. 

The first, as already noticed, is founded upon an observation of Buxtorf's. 
But it is to be observed, that this is given, not as a grammatical rule, but as 
an occasional exception. The Rule is, " Affixed Pronouns belong properly to 
none but active Verbs; and they denote the person of the patient, which those 
Verbs express by the accusative case." They are, in fact, precisely in the same 
predicament, as an accusative case governed by an active verb in Latin. As 
then the construction is a deviation from the regular rule, Buxtorf, after giving 
some instances of it, guards it with this caution : " These and similar instances, 
Kimchi observes in his Michlol, are to be observed and noted by use ; but all 
verbs, promiscuously, are not to be drawn to this construction. The Hebrew 
language does h* Ao v& frequently use this concise and contracted mode of ex- 



lii APPENDIX. [NO. 

pression, where the sense, notwithstanding, remains dear: but great care must 
be taken lest the style be rendered harsh, or ambiguous, and lest any violence 
be offered to the meaning. It must only be resorted to where the language 
loses by it nothing of its clearness and elegance." Here the irregularity is 
itself limited by a rule ; and if the rule be accurate, — if the affixed pronoun is 
never used for the regular dative where it would create harshness or ambiguity ; 
then, certainly, it cannot be so used in the words of Jephthah; where, if it is, 
the ambiguity it occasions is such, that this acute grammarian himself, who 
first explained this construction, never suspected its existence here. It is 
remarkable, also, that among the instances of this construction collected by 
Buxtorf and Parkhurst, are none in which it attends verbs of offering or 
sacrificing. Such verbs often have the pronoun affixed to denote the thing 
offered, but not another example can be found, in which it is used for the Being 
to whom the offering is made. 

The second philological argument urged by Dr. Randolph in favour of his 
translation, and much insisted on by Parkhurst and A. Clarke, is, the omission 
of the preposition b before the word for burnt- offering, — nVlJJ. " If Jephthah 
had meant," says Mr. Parkhurst, " as translated, I will offer it for a burnt- 
offering, h, for, ought to have been prefixed to rhty, as in Gen. xxii. 2, 13." 
It is extraordinary that the author of a Hebrew Lexicon, who must have been 
familiar with every word in the Bible, should say that there ought to be a *? 
in this place, when there are many similar instances of its absence. In the 
writings of Moses, indeed, it seems to be commonly, perhaps always, used ; but 
seldom in the other books; I believe, never. Thus (1 Sam. vi. 14,) we read, 
that when the ark was sent home by the Philistines, the men of Bethshemesh 
offered the cows (for) a burnt-offering, — nbj?, (without the S prefixed,) — to 
the Lord. Tn the next chapter (ver. 9,) we have, in the marginal reading 
called the Keri, which is evidently right, the very same construction as in 
Jephth ah's vow: the affixed pronoun, — in, — is joined to the verb to express 
the thing offered, and the h is omitted before the noun : " Then Samuel took 
a sucking lamb, and offered it (for) a burnt-offering (n^ltf lnbjW) whole to 
the Lord." For other examples, see Isa. xl. 16, and Jer. xix. 5. But in 
2 Kiugs iii. 27, is a case exactly parallel to this of Jephthah. What Jephthah, 
according to the most direct import of his words and the Septuagint rendering 
of them, is supposed to have promised to do, the king of Moab, when sore 
pressed by the kings of Israel, Judah, and Edom, is affirmed to have done ; 
and in precisely the same words joined in precisely the same construction. Of 
the king of Moab it is said, " Then took he his eldest son, that should have 
reigned in his stead, and offered him (for) a burnt- offering upon the Avail." 
The words that express, and offered him (for) a burnt-offering, are inb^'l 
rhvi Jephthah 's are nbll? in\V?J?ni{ the only difference is in the mood, 
tense, and person of the verb, and a common variety in the spelling of the noun: 
the same affix, — in, — is used in both ; in both the *? is omitted. 

It must now, I think, be evident, that although Dr. Randolph's interpretation 
may possibly be correct, its credit must stand entirely upon the strength of his 
first grammatical argument, the applicability of which to the case is, we have 
seen, not indisputable : his second, we find, is destitute of any validity what* 
soever. 

And it is no less evident, that, after all the labours of the learned to fix a 
sense upon Jephthah's vow which should exclude the idea that a human sa- 






vii.] appendix. liii 

crifice was either intended by it or might be its unintended result, nothing 
satisfactory has been produced. It is still undeniable, that the old common 
translation, or rather the older one of the Septuagint, is that which naturally 
flows from the words, if taken in their regular construction. Certain it is, that 
if Jephthah had spoken English, and had said, " Whosoever cometh out of the 
doors of my house, &c. — shall be the Lord's, and I will offer him up for a burnt- 
offering;" and these words had been translated from English into Hebrew; they 
could not otherwise have been exactly rendered than by the very words which 
now stand in the Hebrew Bible. 

Upon the whole, then, I think, it will be admitted, that the assertion in the 
Lecture is fully made out, " that the most unforced inference from the language 
of the original, and from the history in general, is, that the sacrifice took place." 
But as, nevertheless, there are other considerations which render it in the 
highest degree improbable that such a sacrifice did take place, it seems to be 
reasonable to conclude, that the letter is so framed as apparently to affirm it, 
because, otherwise, the subjects treated of in the spiritual sense, for the sake 
of which, pre-eminently, the letter is constructed, could not have been so 
fully represented. How important then does the doctrine of a spiritual sense 
become, as affording the only key to a satisfactory solution of such difficulties ! 



No. VII. (Page 323.) 

ARGUMENTS FOB THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST PART OO- 
GENESIS CONSIDERED. 

I have stated in the text above, that the regarding of the early part of Genesis 
as a pure allegory, solves all the difficulties attending it, and is itself unattended 
by any. I am aware, however, that difficulties have been attempted to be 
raised against the allegorical interpretation ; but the arguments by which they 
are supported appear to me to be scarcely deserving of the least consideration, 
— to be such as would never have been offered but in behalf of a cause 
altogether indefensible. We will here notice one or two that are most insisted 
on; being the only ones I have seen which make any approach towards 
plausibility. 

It has been urged, that the account of Adam and Eve, and of the other 
antediluvian patriarchs, is referred to in the New Testament as real. But, 
certainly, nothing is any where said of them which is not as applicable to the 
spiritual as to the literal acceptation of the history. For instance : When Paul 
says, " that as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive*," the 
meaning is the same if we understand by Adam the first assemblage of human 
beings who were ever formed by God into a Church, and by the departure of 
whom from the primeval integrity, man at this day inherits a corrupt nature, 
as if we understand by him a single individual: indeed it is perfectly evident, 
that the Apostle uses the term Adam for man's state by nature. In like man- 
ner, when the genealogy of Jesus Christ is carried up to Adam, the true meaning 
* 1 Cor. xv. 21. 



llV APPENDIX. [NO. 

is the same, whether some of those personages be purely allegorical characters 
or not. For although those from Abraham, or perhaps from Eber, were indi- 
vidual men who lived as such in the world, they still were all representative 
characters, and they are mentioned in that genealogy to denote certain species 
of human minds, or certain principles which enter into the composition of the 
human mind: these then are enumerated as ancestors, according to the flesh, 
of the Lord Jesus Christ, to inform us, that in his human nature was concentred 
every thing belonging to the human character, from highest to lowest, from 
first to last ; every thing that had ever entered into it, from the primeval 
times, when human nature appeared in its highest integrity, so as to be almost 
a pure, abstract essence, till the age in which he was bora among the Jews, 
who then were the most gross and carnalized race that ever existed: thus that 
all was assumed, and all was redeemed, by him. 

Of the same nature is the objection of Lord Bolingbroke, whose statement is 
quoted by one of the advocates of the literal interpretation, and who introduces 
it thus : ** Even Lord Bolingbroke (than whom Revelation never had a more 
subtle opposer) justly rejects the allegorical interpretation ; 'It cannot (says he) 
le admitted by Christians; for if it was, what would become of that famous text 
[that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head,] whereon the 
doctrine of our redemption is founded?'"* But the writer who has adduced 
this as authority, while he declares the subtilty of this opponent of revelation, 
has here, in his own simplicity, overlooked the snake in the grass. The passage 
he quotes is itself an example of the subtilty of the noble infidel; whose object, 
doubtless, was, to clog the belief of Revelation with all possible difficulties ; and 
who therefore wished to shut out the allegorical interpretation of this part of 
the Word of God, because he saw that, if this were admitted, no solid objection 
would lie against it. Whether the woman spoken of in this prophecy denote 
the first female of the human race, or human nature in general as to its prin- 
ciple of affection or will, it equally was fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, who 
was as truly the seed of the woman in the spiritual as in the literal sense of the 
words. 

In another instance it has been attempted to overturn the whole doctrine of 
allegorical interpretation by a quibble: it has been said, that " a figurative 
fall would require only a figurative redemption." But it is not the fall itself 
which the allegorical interpretation represents as figurative, but the description 
of it: the fall itself it considers as real, and, of course, that it required a real 
redemption. 

Altogether then, I trust, it must be seen, that every consideration which can 
be brought to bear upon this question, confirms the fact, that the history in 
this part of Genesis is a continued allegory; and that no reasonable objection 
can be raised against it. 

• Home's Introd. vol. i. p. 174. 



VIII.] APPENDIX. IV 



No. VIII. 

REMARKS ON THE RECENT VOLUME OP BAMPTON LECTURES, BY THE LATE 
REV. J. J. CONYBEARE, M. A. ; AND ON THE SUPPORT IT AFFORDS TO THE 
LEADING PRINCIPLE OF THE PRESENT WORK. 

It has yielded no small encouragement to the Author of the work now offered 
to the public, to see issue from the press while these Lectures were in it, a 
volume which, to a considerable extent, espouses and most ably maintains the 
fame argument ; a volume, also, the character and intrinsic merits of which 
must recommend it to a large and influential body of readers : whilst it can 
hardly fail to generate, in the minds of many who peruse it, ideas upon the 
spiritual interpretation of Scripture, which nothing but such a consistent system 
as the present work endeavours to develope can satisfy and fill. As was to be 
expected, the amiable and learned author, whose sudden loss to the church of 
which he was so decided an ornament I sincerely unite with her in lamenting, 
does not attempt to free the system of spiritual interpretation from those in- 
cumbrances and inconsistencies, with which, as has been noticed in our Lectures 
above, it has in modern ages been crippled. But the reason evidently is, 
because he had not found in the writers on Scripture-interpretation whom he 
had examined, any Rule of uniform and universal application. Had such a 
regular system been presented to him, it appears reasonable to infer, from the 
affirmative sentiments with which his mind was so strongly imbued on the 
general question, that he would have accepted it with joy; and therefore, be- 
side the general grounds for regretting his premature removal, I cannot but 
think that I have a personal one also, and that the present work has lost by 
the dispensation, not only a well qualified and candid, but, in addition, a 
favourable judge. 

Mr. Conybeare (who was brother to the gentleman from whose valuable 
writings on Geology an extract or two are taken in our Lecture above*,) 
describes his work as " An attempt to trace the history, and to ascertain the 
limits, of the Secondary and Spiritual Interpretation of Scripture ;" and the 
argument of the whole is precisely the same, though in a form so much more 
extended, as that of the third Section of our second Lecture. Had not our 
work been so enlarged as almost to render the single volume to which it is 
necessarily, by its original plan, confined, a book of inconvenient bulk, I should 
have deemed it advisable, — for certainly it would materially promote my own 
design, — to examine these Bampton Lectures at a length proportioned to their 
importance and interest : as it is, I must confine my notice of them to a few 
quotations and some brief remarks. Not to notice them at all would be doing 
equal injustice to my readers and myself. 

The first Lecture, after proposing the design of the work, is chiefly occupied 
with arguments on the reasonableness and necessity of admitting the Scriptures 
to contain, in general, a spiritual sense, and against the low principles of Scrip- 
ture-interpretation which have become general on the continent. 

In the following passage the author advances several of the principles which 
we have endeavoured to establish in this work: "However we may scruple 
* P. 314, 315. 

IS 



lvi APPENDIX. [NO. 

(as many in the fair and legitimate exercise of private judgment doubtless will 
scruple) to follow the more learned and eminent of these [the authors who 
have enumerated several divisions and varieties of the spiritual sense] to the 
full extent of their respective theories ; yet, that such a secondary and spiritual 
meaning was, from the earliest period, partially at least, involved in the tra- 
ditional and written monuments of the Jewish faith, cannot, we hold, be fairly 
and successfully denied ; cannot even be doubted by any one who, with a belief 
in their inspiration, and an unprejudiced and impartial frame of mind, applies 
himself to the study of the books of Moses. Nor can this position be reasonably 
objected to a priori as appearing unnatural or improbable; for in the earlier 
and simpler stages of society and language, such a mode of giving utterance 
to the conceptions of mind, so far from seeming rare and unintelligible, is 
known to have been usually more prevalent and popular.* The original signi- 
fication of those metaphors, which make up so large a part of all language 
both spoken and written, must then have been fresher in the memory of man ; 
they were daily, if we may so express ourselves, in the proce s of being in- 
creased in their number, and extended and modified in their import, as the 
occurrence.of new ideas or new associations demanded. The mind habituated 
to this process would catch and retain, with quite sufficient rapidity and dis- 
tinctness, the truths and instructions conveyed through the medium of those 
images and allegories, which in fact do so largely and constantly present them- 
selves in the literature, both sacred and profane, of the ruder ages.f It may 
be added, that the wisdom and theology of the Egyptians, to whose customs 
the Israelites had been so long inured, appear, from the remotest antiquity to 
which we can trace them, to have been involved in figurative and mystical re- 
presentations. The whole hieroglyphical system must have been little else 
than a tissue of metaphor and allegory addressed to the eye instead of the 
ear. % These considerations might well lead us to suspect, that even they whom 
we regard as having needlessly and fancifully assumed or exaggerated the 
mystical sense of many parts of the Mosaic record, are at least not more itnphi- 
losophical than they who utterly proscribe every interpretation of the kind, 
however sanctioned by the authority of the New Testament, or countenanced 
by fair and reasonable analogies."§ 

The length of time during which this doctrine was that of the Christian 
Church universal, is brought down by Mr. C. later than by me; for he says, 
" The truth and reasonableness of this view of the Mosaic records has been ac- 
knowledged, until within the last half century, by the whole, or nearly the 
whole, of the Christian Church."|| 

He quotes and adopts, with unreserved commendation, a sentiment of " the 
learned Spencer," in which " he acknowledges unhesitatingly the distinction 
between the « Scriptura exterior cujus sensus minime difficilis se cuivis ofiert,' 
and the ' Scriptura interior legis mirabilia continens, quae ut planius et apertius 
intucatur psalmista oculos retectos expetit."fl 

I might add some powe»ful reasoning of our author in confirmation of his 
assertion, that " we not only find that our Lord and his followers themselves 
affix a secondary and more exalted sense to many passages of the Old Testa- 

* See our Lect. III. p. 95, &c. and p. 10G, &c. 
t See our Lect. VI. p. 317, &c. and p. 320, etc. 
% See our Lect. III. p. 120, <fce. 
§ P. 13 to 16. n P. 19. See our Lecture II. p. 50. % P. 20. See our Lect. H. p. 40. 



VIII.] APPENDIX. lvii 

ment, but that they argue as though such a principle of interpretation were 
acknowledged as legitimate*:" but I will only take further, from the first Lec- 
ture, some remarks which are exactly coincident with some of my own, 
respecting those Christian teachers who would reject the spiritual sense of the 
Scriptures altogether. " We may grant," says Mr. C, " somewhat to the in- 
fluence of outward circumstances, somewhat more perhaps to the alleged, and, 
we hope, sincere desire of conciliating the open adversaries of our faith f ; a 
conciliation however seldom effected, and certainly not worth the purchasing, 
by the surrender of nearly all that distinguishes the Gospel from the mere 
philosophical creed of the deist J ; but where we are told, in a voice purporting 
to be that of all the reasonable divines of protestant Europe, that every type, 
every prophecy, every adumbration of the Messiah's work and kingdom, to 
which we have been accustomed to look for the confirming our faith and the 
invigorating our devotion, is to be at once and entirely discarded, as matter of 
nothing better than Jewish superstition; where we see this rejection of all 
spiritual interpretation coupled with an undisguised anxiety to divest even the 
historical relations of Scripture of every thing exceeding human powers and 
attainments§, we are assuredly tempted for the moment to inquire, Can these 
men be Christians ?"|| 

He afterwards shews that it is an unfounded error to suppose, as some would 
have us, that the spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures, introduced into 
Christianity from its foundation, originated with, or even prevailed among, the 
Pharisees, or that it was borrowed from them or the other Jews. 

The design of the six next Lectures is to evince, that the principles which 
thus appear evidently proposed to us upon the face of the Scriptures them- 
selves, have accordingly been assumed and acted upon by the whole body of 
interpreters of Scripture till within a very recent period ; in reference to which 
fact he observes, " It is both useful and gratifying to find, that those opinions 
which we believe to be grounded on the firm warranty of Scripture and of 
reason, have received the support of the wise and the pious in former ages."fl 
Here then they who may wish to see a more detailed and complete examina- 
tion of this important point than could be afforded by the brief and popular 
view given in our second Lecture**, will find ample satisfaction : but the two 
accounts differ in nothing but their length and form; in their tenor and con- 
clusions they exactly coincide. 

Having in his second Lecture remarked upon the traces of this mode of 
interpretation which are found in the Apocryphal books of the Old Testament, 
and upon the manner in which it was cultivated by the Judaic school of phi- 
losophy at Alexandria, and especially by the celebrated Philo ; Mr. C. com- 
mences his third Lecture with these important remarks : " In the two former 
Lectures it was endeavoured to shew, that there were reasonable grounds for 
attaching a secondary and spiritual sense to much of the Law and the Pro- 
phets ; and that such was, as far as we have the opportunity of ascertaining 
matters of this nature, the opinion, if not cf the whole Jewish church, yet 
certainly of many among its most learned and pious members. That the 
practice of such interpretation was carried by some to an unwarrantable ex- 

* P. 24. See onr Lcct. II. 41, <fec. and p. 44, &c. 
t Sec our Lect. I. p. 6, S c. Lect. II. p. 26 and 32. 
t See our Lect. I. p. 8. § See our Lect. I. p. 6. || P. 30, 31. 

H P. II. ** Sec. iii. § 4. p. 50, &c 



lviii APPENDIX. [no. 

cess*, affords no proof that it was not originally founded upon just conceptions 
of the character of the older revelation, or that it is repugnant to the wise and 
benevolent intentions of Him by whom all Scripture was given, and to whom 
were known all his works from the beginning. The course of our inquiry has now 
brought us to that period, at which the preaching of a new and more perfect 
dispensation was committed by its divine Author to the apostles and ministers 
of his choice: committed with the express assurance, and confirmed and 
sanctioned by the conscious and sensible presence of his informing Spirit. If 
we believe them to have spoken and written under the guidance of that Spirit, 
to have been led (as it was promised) into all truth ; if we hold upon any 
theory the proper inspiration of that which they delivered ; I do not see with 
what consistency we can refuse (as some would do) to acquiesce in their inter- 
pretation of the Scriptures of the Old Testament. That to these Scriptures 
they do affix a secondary and spiritual meaning, and that they refer to them 
with this view, not merely in a few partial and dubious instances, but re- 
peatedly, and with a distinctness only to be questioned by the most determined 
prejudice, seems equally clear, f If indeed with one school we are to deny the 
existence of all types and prefigurations of the Messiah and his kingdom, and 
to contend that where the Law is said to have had a shadow of the good things 
to come, no more is meant than that in comparison with the gospel it was as 
valueless as a shadow when compared to a substance ; we would answer, that 
such a theory claims for plain and specific language a much greater laxity and 
licence of interpretation than any which it objects to. If with others b we 
attempt to resolve the whole into one system of accommodation, we certainly 
do not a little shake the credibility of those witnesses who could rest so much 
upon so sandy a foundation. But the writers of the New Testament in no place 
appear either to confess or to suspect that the secondary or allegorical sense, 
which they attach to the Law and the Prophets, are [is] thus arbitrary and 
unreal. That we are content to regard some few instances of obscure appli- 
cation as thus accommodated, (and the lists usually given of such accommo- 
dations might indeed be much reduced,) does not, any more than the exceptions 
in various other cases, invalidate the general rule." 

On this subject the author introduces this highly judicious remark ; " And 
here I would venture even to submit, whether, as we consent, both from their 
own internal evidence and from the acknowledged inspiration of those who 
adduce them, to receive the great bulk of the Scriptural quotations so adduced, 
in the New Testament as truly and originally typical and prophetical, it may 
not be the part of Christian humility and sober criticism rather to suspend the 
judgment as to those few which present real difficulties, than to attempt the 
accounting for or reconciling them by any hypothesis of accommodation, or 
partial and individual application ; by conceding that they are no more than 
ornaments of diction or at best argumenta ad hominem."^ The most difficult 
of the supposed accommodations are a quotation or two in Matthew's Gospel ; 
but from these all difficulty would vanish, if we understood the spiritual sense 
of both the records. 

* See our Lect. II. p. 54 and 57 ; Lect. III. p. 72, 73. 
t See our Lect II. p. 44, &c. and Appendix, No. I. 
a " This is the hypothesis of Sykes in his answer to Collins." 

b " This hypothesis the theologians of modern Germany have derived chiefly from tho 
school of Lc Clerc" $ P. 75 to 80. 



Vlli.] APPENDIX. lix 

The preceding remarks relate to the Old Testament; but our author equally 
contends for the spiritual sense of part, at least, of the New. " It cannot," he 
observes, " be denied or questioned, that even in the records of the new 
covenant, the things which concern the renewal of the inner man, and the sal- 
vation of the believer, are in more than one case shadowed out to us under 
types and analogies, which, if we accept the testimony of those records, we are 
not only authorized but bound to understand and to apply spiritually. To 
pass over much of that part of our Lord's teaching which was confessedly in 
parables ; if we allow that there be any spiritual grace connected with the 
right usage and reception of the Christian sacraments, we must admit their 
outward elements to be the certain and pre-ordained symbols of that grace, 
and of the means whereby it is conveyed to us : we must (be it spoken with 
reverence and faith) admit the material body and blood of our glorious Re- 
deemer himself to be typical of that spiritual food whereby the inward life of 
the believer's soul, that life which, as we are expressly told, is hidden with 
Christ in God, is produced and supported.* When the apostle urges, (in which 
our church has well and wisely followed him,) that as our Saviour died and 
rose again for us, so should we who are buried with him in baptism die unto 
sin and rise again unto righteousness ; when he expressly exhorts the believers 
as those who are risen with Christ ; we cannot deny that he sees in the history 
of thus much at least of his Master's life a spiritual as well as a literal import. 
The luxuriance of human ingenuity may indeed, as it often has done, push its 
imitation of these mysterious analogies much too far ; the pride of scepticism 
may refuse to be taught at all after this manner, and its votary may question 
the inspiration of those Scriptures which would thus teach him : but neither 
the abuses of the one nor the perverseness of the other, can invalidate the truth 
of the general position, that the New Testament does not only assert the 
secondary and spiritual meaning of much that is contained in the Old, but 
authorizes and strengthens the legitimacy of such interpretation by affixing 
the like to portions also of its own contents."! 

These extracts are quite sufficient to shew, how decided is the support which 
Mr. C.'s work lends to the doctrine of the spiritual interpretation of Scripture. 
If it is thus certain, that " portions," at least, of the productions of Inspiration 
possess a spiritual sense, it is equally certain that they possess it uni- 
versally as has, I apprehend, been fully proved in our Lectures above.J One 
position being granted, the other follows of course. It is most true, as our 
author remarks, that if " the practice of such interpretation was carried by some 
to an unwarrantable excess, this affords no proof that it was not originally 
founded upon just conceptions of the character of revelation, or that it is repug- 
nant to the intentions of Him by whom all Scripture was given :" but in what 
consists this excess? Not in applying it universally, but without a just know- 
ledge of its nature : not in drawing from every part of Scripture a spiritual 
sense, but in deducing from it, under the name of the spiritual sense, notions of 
mere human invention; or rather, in inventing such notions and endeavouring 
to force them into the Scriptures. It is thus that " luxuriance of human in- 
genuity may indeed, as it often has done, push its imitation of these mysterious 
analogies much too far ;" being ignorant of the real analogies, it substitutes for 
them some of its own : but this no more proves that the abused passages ha 

* See our Lect. V. p. 300, 301. t P- 82, 83. 

X See our Lect. IV. p. 139, 140, 16-5. Lect. Y. p. 222 to 225. 



lx APPENDIX. [NO. 

no spiritual analogies properly belonging to them, than the personation of the 
Earl of Warwick, Edward Plantagenet, by Lambert Simnel, proved that no 
such Earl of Warwick existed. Hence no negative conclusion can be drawn 
against the affirmative principle thus established, from the circumstance, that 
when Mr. C, after having in the six intermediate Lectures traced the history 
of spiritual interpretation, and shewn that it was, for many ages, universally 
admitted to be of universal application, and never entirely denied till within a 
very recent period, comes, in his last Lecture, to attempt to ascertain its limits, 
he exhibits some doubt and vacillation; for doubt and vacillation must, as has 
been shewn in our Lecture above*, ever attend on the expositor, who, while 
be admits the principle at all, is deterred from accepting it as universal, by the 
extravagances into which some have run, who have been guided, in their en- 
deavours to decipher it, by no more certain clew than fancy or conjecture. 
This is evidently the origin of Mr. C.'s attempted limitations ; and thus, instead 
of proving the non-universality of the spiritual sense, they only prove the 
want and necessity of such a universal rule for its development as we have 
endeavoured to present in this work. Many of the expositions which he de- 
tails, as samples of the spiritual mode of interpretation as practised in dif- 
ferent ages, are c rtainly sufficiently capricious and unfounded : and though 
he gives some which he acknowledges to be striking and beautiful, and 
others which he objects to only because the letter is plain and intel- 
ligible without them: (a strange objection, by the by, to follow the 
admissicn respecting the plain and intelligible history of the death and 
resurrection of Jesus, that "thus much at least of his life had a spiritual as 
well as a literal import ;") yet it seems as if the wading through so immense 
a chaos of contradiction and confusion as he was compelled to examine to 
obtain the materials for this learned part of his work, had had rather an un- 
favourable effect upon his judgment, and had scare dy left it proof against the 
effects of unavoidable disgust. His mind was evidently in a state here of 
great indecision. The doctrine of a spiritual sense, so long as it is supposed, if 
it exists at all, to be the consequence of arbitrary appointment, is attended 
with difficultyt ; but when it is seen, as we have endeavoured to evince is the 
fact, to be the result of an immutable law of nature, and absolutely essential to, 
and inseparable from, the truly divine style of writing^ ; all difficulty disap- 
pears. Then its universal becomes far more defensible then its partial exist- 
ence. Not even " the pride of scepticism " can then allege a plausible argu- 
ment against it, or for "refusing to be taught after this manner;" and the 
votaiy of scepticism, instead of drawing from it a plea for "questioning the 
inspiration of the Scriptures which would thus teach him," may find in it a 
nrcof demonstrative of their divinity.§ I cannot, then, but believe, that had 

* Ibid. See particularly the Note, p. 225 to 228. 

t See our Lect. II. p. 62. t See our Lecture IV. p. 127 to 134. 

§ Mr. C. frequently cites the judicious canon of the early fathers, " Argumentum 
mysticum non valet ad probanda fldei dogmata," which affirms the same principle as we 
have urged in our second Lecture, p. 64, 65 : but he surely extends it too far, when he 
seems to infer, that no argument can be drawn from the spiritual sense in proof of the in- 
spiration of the Scriptures. To prove by the spiritual sense a specific doctrine, is quite a 
fifferent thing from proving, from the literal sense, and from rational and scientific con- 
siderations, that there must be a spiritual sense within, and that, if so, objections drawn 
from the letter not understood are invalid. Mr. C makes his remark, (p. 316, note n,) in 
reference to a work, dedicated to the Sceptic, entitled "An Analytical View of Christianity:" 



VIII.] APPENDIX. lxi 

this view of the subject been presented to Mr. C, he would have accepted it 
with eagerness : for he certainly rather considered it impracticable, upon any 
principles with which his researches had brought him acquainted, to discover 
the true spiritual sense of the Scriptures, except where it is pointed out by the 
apostles, than actually denied its universal existence. I would fain examine 
several of his positions, but my limits forbid. While he viewed the subject as 
being as yet enveloped in much obscurity, he evidently anticipated that the 
darkness would not be suffered to endure for ever.* He decidedly admits the 
Word of God to be still in a great measure a sealed book : but he doubtless 
believed the prophecies which announce that this darkness shall have an end; 
that the time will come in which he who is the Word will open more of the 
contents of the written Word to his church ; in which it shall be said, " The 
Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the 
seven seals thereof." 

Altogether, the appearance of such a work at the present juncture, from such 
a quarter, is not a little extraordinary. I have touched in these Lectures, and 
Mr. C. also dwells in his, upon the prevalence, in the present day, not only of 
absolute infidelity, but of low and unworthy ideas of the Scriptures among those 
who still profess to accept them as the sources of true religion ; ideas which not 
only reign almost universally on the continent, but have spread their contagion 
in this country to a greater extent than Mr. C. might deem it prudent to 
notice. The influence of such sentiments is evidently rapidly increasing. 
According to appearance, the bulk of the Christian public is fast verging into 
such notions of the Divine Word, as differ from open infidelity in little but in 
name. In such a state of things, are we to regard Mr. C.'s publication as a 
warning voice, raised, but raised in vain, to check the spreading desolation? 
as the last remonstrance, in the Anglican Church, of expiring Truth? as a 
monitory beacon, to gleam but for a moment, " ere universal darkness bury 
all ?" Or may we hail it as the real harbinger of returning day? as the symptom 
of a new order of intelligence arising in the Christian mind of this country ? 
as indicative of a state of preparation commencing among the British Christians 
for the reception of just views of the Word of God, — for the diffusion among 
them of the genuine light of that Word? Faxit Deus! 

How far that work may seem to provoke such an observation I cannot say, having never 
seen it. 

* "All," he observes, (p. 2, 3,) " who profess to accept and to search the Scriptures as 
the record and testimony of God, (without the exception even of those whom we regard, 
not perhaps unjustly, as leaning to the side of error and enthusiasm,) do not uniformly 
admit that a partial, though not always an impenetrable cloud, yet rests upon the sanctuary 
of divine truth." 



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